Abstract The article is of a scientific and research nature, and its subject matter covers the object of the crime of a creditor’s bribery (Article 302 § 2 of the Criminal Code). The article aims to resolve the doubts it raises. The author presents its development in Polish criminal law and analyses the features specified in the provision: a creditor, financial benefits, means of granting them, a promise to grant such benefits, acting to the detriment of other creditors, a relationship between a creditor’s action and an insolvency proceeding or a proceeding aimed at preventing bankruptcy, an insolvency proceeding, and other proceedings aimed at preventing bankruptcy. The interpretation of all these notions is proposed in the article based on doctrine and case law.

Abstract The author discusses the nature and scope of changes introduced to the Code of Petty Offences and the Code of Procedure in Petty Offences Cases by the Act of 2 December 2021. The amendment represents a drastic intervention by the legislator in the current legal framework regarding offences against safety and order in transportation. It foresees significant modifications in the legal and criminal response to these offences, transformations in the characteristics of selected types of prohibited acts, and proposes entirely new types of prohibited acts. The analysis suggests that the guiding principle behind these changes is to increase the degree of punitiveness of petty offences law towards perpetrators of traffic violations. This legislative approach raises concerns about the instrumental use of petty offences law with respect to the perpetrators of these offences. The adopted direction of changes raises suspicions that the legislator has not thoroughly familiarised themselves with the matter covered by their intervention. In any case, it is not grounded in the current state of traffic criminality, or in the analysis of judicial practice. An increase in repressiveness has never directly translated into a reduction in traffic criminality. The latter is a much more complex problem, involving the necessity of multi-faceted references.

Abstract This article aims to delineate the boundaries of the evidence initiative of the Court of the First Instance, which bears the responsibility to fulfil the goals of criminal proceedings, as outlined in Article 2 § 1 item 1 and § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, from the perspective of evidence reliability, an essential component of the fair criminal trial concept. The court’s evidentiary actions were thus examined through the lens of requirements stemming from Article 6(1) and (3) of the ECHR, especially the principles of independence, impartiality, adversarial process, immediacy, and access to criminal proceeding materials. The article adopts a dogmatic approach, building on an analysis of current national legal standards and the Rome Convention’s provisions, viewed through doctrine and jurisprudence of national courts and the Court in Strasbourg. This makes the publication relevant for both legal scholars and practitioners involved in criminal proceedings. The analysis suggests that the court’s initiative to introduce evidence, its methods of evidence gathering, and access to collected materials during proceedings must not curtail the rights of the parties, especially the accused, to conduct their evidentiary activities. Depriving the court of the primacy of independence and impartiality, restricting the parties’ capacity to engage in dispute in favour of an inquisitorial jurisdictional body violates the right to fair evidentiary proceedings. The court, in safeguarding the principle of material truth, must remember its role as a justice administrator and balance all arguments accordingly. Seeking evidence solely to establish the accused’s guilt contradicts the procedural function of adjudication and compromises the court’s neutrality, making it an extension of the prosecution. Hence, a thorough elucidation of case circumstances by the court should not disempower the parties, particularly regarding their initiative to present evidence.

Abstract The article discusses matters related to the issuance of the European Investigation Order (EIO) during the stage of a preparatory proceeding, the objective of which is to obtain information protected by banking secrecy from a foreign bank. Attention is drawn to the essence of this instrument of international cooperation in criminal matters and its comprehensive nature. A key problem revealed in prosecutorial and judicial practice consists of determining the entity competent to issue the European Investigation Order in the in rem phase of the preparatory proceedings. This issue also necessitates determining whether, in such a procedural situation, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the district court to access information subject to bank secrecy and whether this affects the scope of competence of the court or the prosecutor. An examination of case law and the accompanying opinions of the doctrine presented in the article reveals a non-uniform, even mutually exclusive, approach to this issue. A critical look at the presented range of views enables a clear stance on the aforementioned issues and the formulation of a de lege ferenda proposal.