Penal order proceedings in the light of praxis

The article is concerned with analysis of functioning of penal order proceedings in the shape determined in the Law on Special Penal Responsibility of May 10, 1985 (Official Gazetee No. 23, item 101). The analysis and evaluation has been based on empirical research conducted in three district courts (Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Iława). The research included 592 cases with 666 penal orders. The cases examined according to penal order proceedings constituted ca. 6% of all criminal cases. They were concerned with the so-called trivial crime, directed mostly against property. The research provided grounds to formulate several reservations concerning the courts practice of estabilishing the existence of one of the conditions of admissibility of penal order proceedings, namely that the circumstances relating to the commission of an act and guilt are beyond doubt. Moreover, reservations arose also with respect to negative prerequisites for penal order proceedings. Most schortcomings were noted with respect to the process of establishing the presence of good reasons to doubt sanity of an accused. The analysis of the participation of the parties in hearings confirmed that in penal order proceedings the principles of directness, openness and of adversary trial system are absent, for in most instances the parties were not notified of the date of a court session. The examination of the contents of penal orders revealed that a prevailing penalty was a fine. Besides, the courts too often applied the additional penalty of publication of the penal order. As few as 13% of penal orders were subject to objection, with only 7% of penal orders objected to by the accused and their counsels. In consequence of objections, the court aggravated the situation of the accused in as many as 43% of casesDigitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/201