MPs from Poland’s ruling coalition have proposed a bill to amend the country’s penal code to make it illegal to refuse police fines issued for minor offences. The proposal has been opposed by Agreement (Porozumienie), a junior party in the government, making it the latest split in the ruling camp.
The new amendment, proposed on Friday night, would mean that people handed a police fine would have to accept it on the spot, with the possibility of appealing it in court within the next seven days.
Under Poland’s current law, recipients of a fine have the right to refuse to accept it. The case is then redirected to a court to decide whether the penalty is justifiable.
The proposal, backed by members of Law and Justice (PiS), the main party in the government, as well as junior coalition partner United Poland (Solidarna Polska), would give courts the right to maintain or revoke a fine, but also to give a “more severe” punishment “as well as imposing a punitive measure”. This would allow court clerks, rather than judges, to issue reprimands or fines in the writ proceedings, reports Gazeta.pl.
The justification for the bill, represented by Jan Kanthak of United Poland, is that it will “ease the burden on courts” since “the overwhelming majority” of cases of refusals to accept fines for misdemeanours result in a final conviction by the court.
It also notes that the proposed legislation will avoid often “impulsive and ill-considered” refusals to accept fines, necessitating “a series of actions related to bringing an indictment in a misdemeanour case”.
The proposal has been opposed by Jarosław Gowin, head of the other junior coalition partner Agreement (Porozumienie), who said in an interview with PAP on Sunday that the “absurd” bill was likely to be withdrawn.
Agreement’s spokeswoman, Magdalena Sroka, told PAP that her party was not consulted on the bill and did not know it would be submitted. But Krzysztof Sobolewski, a senior PiS MP, has said that his party is aiming to persuade Agreement to come around to the project.
After months of in-fighting between the threeparties forming the government, in September the coalition appeared to have collapsed, before reaching a new agreement to continue to rule together.
The leaders of Poland's ruling parties have signed a new coalition agreement after weeks of discussion and tension
Kaczyński: "We have a good future ahead of us"
Gowin: "The government will function more efficiently"
Ziobro: "There are good times ahead" https://t.co/ElNIdFtT0G
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 26, 2020
Mikołaj Małecki, a law professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, called the justification for the bill “offensive” to citizens by implying that they “do not know what they are doing”.
The bill is a “step in the direction of a police state” and “a violation of the constitution”, as charged individuals will have to “prove their innocence” in appealing against the fine, Małecki told Wirtualna Polska.
“It is the policeman who will administer justice. It will be the officer who will be the first to decide on the criminal liability of a citizen for a given act. Yet the police officer is only meant to collect evidence, while the court decides on the punishment,” said Małecki.
Małecki notes that many fines issued by the police for violating restrictions during the pandemic – such as for not wearing masks in public or for participating in protests – were later retracted by courts. “Introducing this bill now is a reward of sorts for police officers for such application of the law,” he said.
Wojciech Górowski, a lawyer and doctor of law at the Jagiellonian University, has called the draft amendment “inconsistent with the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence” and suggested it has been a “deliberate action by the authorities to hinder the pursuit of their rights in court, and in the aftermath of the demonstrations and failures of the authorities”.
The legal basis for many lockdown restrictions without introducing a state of emergency has been questioned by legal experts, including the curfew planned for New Year’s Eve, which the government later said was not a curfew but remained in force, after doubts were raised over its legality.
The prime minister’s senior aide, Michał Dworczyk, shrugged off comments that he has himself refused to accept police fines in the past, telling TVN24 that these incidents occurred “many years ago”. “The police officer claimed that I was the perpetrator of a road accident. I did not accept the fine, the case ended in court, the court agreed that I was right” he said.
“To my knowledge, this is a bill meant to reduce the bureaucracy of the system and modelled on the solutions used in other European countries,” he said, admitting that he has not yet read the proposal.
Main image credit: AndrzejRembowski/Pixabay (under Pixabay License)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
