Poland is far from the European average when it comes to the practice of temporary arrests. From 2016 their number increases avalancheally, often on the basis of laconic, even apparent justifications.
Article 41 The Constitution of the Republic of Poland says: “Everyone is granted personal immunity and personal freedom. Deprivation or restriction of freedom may only take place on the terms and under the conditions laid down in the Act.
Any person deprived of liberty not on the basis of a judicial judgment shall have the right to appeal to the court in order to establish without delay the legality of that deprivation. The detention shall be immediately notified to the family or person designated by the deprived person.
Each detainee shall be immediately and in a manner that is understandable to him about the reasons for the detention. It should be within 48 hours from the moment of detention made available to the court.
The detainee should be released if within 24 hours the court will not be served on the decision of the court to make temporary arrest with the pleas put forward. Anyone deprived of liberty should be treated in a humanitarian way.
Any illegal deprivation of liberty shall have the right to compensation." Unfortunately, the provisions of the Basic Law often miss reality.
Temporary arrest in numbers
According to a study conducted by the Court Watch Polska Foundation, a temporary arrest may be applied in Poland even in cases where the evidence contained in the case file does not indicate the need for imprisonment of a man to which the presumption of innocence applies.
From End 2015 to the end 2018 arrived in Polish detentions 3198 Inmates. At the same time, the number of those serving a term of imprisonment was reduced by 1619 people. Until the end of October 2019 The number of detainees increased even more until 8617 persons, and is twice as high as 4 Years ago.
Constantly 90% prosecutorial requests for interim arrest shall be taken into account by courts.
An important conclusion from the study is also that the temporary arrest in most cases is applied not only throughout the investigation but also in court. It was very rare that the temporary arrest was lifted or replaced by other preventive measures prior to the final judgment.
In several percentages of cases in which the district court was competent in fact and in every fifth detention case in which the district court was in fact competent, the repeal of the interim arrest was linked to the cessation of the conditions for isolation. We have had less than once a week to abdicate the interim arrest.
100 cases of provisional arrest. In cases where the indictment was sent to a district court, in which 20. the abrogation of the provisional arrest occurred in connection with the use of one of the consensus termination procedures.
Poland in the tail of Europe
On the basis of international data, we know that a higher level of justice quality correlates with lower average times of temporary arrest. According to the latest edition of the World Justice Project, Poland occupies 17 place from among 24 surveyed countries of Europe and North America with the result 0.61 on a scale of 0 (The worst) to 1 (Perfect).
The Court Watch Polska Foundation has developed recommendations that could improve the practice of using temporary arrests in Poland. These are:
- • a sound analysis of the applications and exhaustive To justify the provisions,
- • the presence of a defender at first procedural activities,
- • Reduction of the maximum length of the provisional arrest for which the Prosecutor may apply once,
- • changing the name to preventive isolation to distinguish them from arrests that involve social stigma,
- • introduction of an electronic surveillance system (SDE) – optional strengthening of the preventive measure of police supervision (Article 275 kpk),
- • flat-rate compensation for wrongful temporary arrest,
- the default ruling of a property guarantee within the meaning of the former classical concept of bail due to the wealth of society. More and more people possess material possessions whose loss would be a considerable ailment. The property warranty should be first from the preventive measures under consideration by the investigating authorities.
Author: Katarzyna Kołbuś
Editor leading RB Magazine. From Over 10 years related to industry press, including the Financial Gazette and portal ipip.com.pl, which is devoted to finance, taxation, law, politics and the economy. She graduated from Polish philology at the UMCS and the linguistic text editing at the University of Warsaw