Removal of the penalty of 25 years imprisonment from the catalog of penalties of the Criminal Code

Abstract

The Act of July 7, 2022 on amendments to the Criminal Code and certain other laws is one of the largest amendments to the Polish criminal law in years. It will bring many significant changes to the Polish Penal Code. The article will focus around the modification of the catalog of punishments (the current Article 32 of the Penal Code) consisting in the repeal of the punishment of 25 years' imprisonment while expanding the limits of ordinary deprivation of liberty, establishing a new framework of the threat of punishment for a term of one month to 30 years' imprisonment. The author will briefly present what he believes to be the basic doubts and controversies related to the upcoming amendment to the extent indicated above, attempting to analyze the ratio legis of removing the penalty of 25 years of imprisonment from the Polish legal order.