Disinformation in Polish criminal law – selected issues

Abstract

This article is an attempt to analyse Polish criminal law in terms of its use in the fight against disinformation. The starting point of the considerations undertaken was, of course, the Criminal Code of 6 June 1997, and specifically the provision contained therein, Article 132, which criminalises so-called intelligence disinformation, which constitutes a very small section of the facts currently referred to as disinformation. This was followed by a discussion of further provisions of the Code, which criminalise behaviour involving the misleading of a third person(s) by the perpetrator in order to achieve a specific goal (e.g. defamation or causing false alarm). The last part is devoted to the crime of negationism, as defined in the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. The presentation of the provisions leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to regulate the issue of disinformation, particularly as the existing provisions criminalise only a small part of the behaviour constituting disinformation.