The Assesment of Permissibility of Using Non-statutory Justifications in Czech and Polish Criminal Law

Abstract

The subject-matter of this paper is the acceptability of non-statutory justifications, analysed on the instance of very similar penal law systems of closely related countries, namely the Republic of Poland and the Czech Republic. In both of them, one can observe a phenomenon of invoking circumstances not set forth in any legal act and rendering an action prohibited in the light of judicature. This paper studies whether it is permitted that public authorities invoked such circumstances in a democratic state of law. It is claimed by certain author that by invoking it judicial authorities violate the principles of specificity, separation of powers and legality, being the cornerstones of Polish and Czech law, and, thus, jeopardise the legal security of individuals; moreover, this course of action may be a threat to the legal system. Regardless of the fact that Poland and the Czech Republic are studied here, the considerations may well apply to any other penal law systems based on the formal and material definition of a crime and the above-mentioned principles. The research method in use was that of analysing legal provisions (mainly, basic laws and penal codes) formally and dogmatically.