POLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Tomasz Konopka, Katarzyna Randzio-Sajkowska and Jakub Kocuba, Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak
rules and scope of co-operation are various. Co- operation with particular countries is prescribed under bilateral international agreements, multi - lateral conventions, or international organisation regulations (including, primarily, EU law and its implementations). 7.4 Discretion for Mitigation and Aggravation The prosecution has the discretion to decide if the examination of evidence provides grounds to charge/indict. The court also imposes penalties according to its own discretion but within the limits prescribed by law. There are no deferred prosecution agreements under Polish law. However, there are some mechanisms that allow a penalty to be mitigated and a criminal investigation to be resolved with - out a trial. In cases referred to under Article 335 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the prosecutor may move to convict the accused without a trial. This requires the following conditions to be met: • the confession of the accused; • an explanation of all the circumstances of the case, which do not contradict the conclusions based on other gathered evidence; and • the attitude of the accused, indicating that the purpose of the proceedings will be achieved without a trial. The court must verify whether the circumstanc - es of the offence that has been committed give rise to doubts and whether the attitude of the accused indicates that the purpose of the pro - ceedings has been achieved. Moreover, according to Article 387 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, an accused who
has been charged with an offence punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to 15 years may, before the end of the first hearing of all the accused in the trial, file a motion for a judgment of conviction and the imposition of a specific penalty or criminal measure on him or her, or for the imposition of a confiscation or compen - sation measure, without an evidentiary hearing being held. The court may grant the accused’s request for a judgment of conviction only if the circumstances of the offence and the respon - sibility of the accused do not give rise to any doubt and if the objectives of the proceedings can be achieved without a full trial; the request may be granted only if the public prosecutor and the injured party, who has been duly informed of the date of the trial and of the possibility for the accused to make such a request, do not object. Upon the public prosecutor’s motion, the court may apply an extraordinary mitigation of the penalty and may even conditionally suspend its enforcement. Such a situation may occur regarding a perpetrator who, apart from giving explanations in their own case, has disclosed a crime subject to the penalty of deprivation of lib - erty for five years and presented its substantive circumstances to a law enforcement authority that had no prior knowledge of these facts. As already described, under the CC, an active briber will not be subject to a penalty if the ben - efit or its promise has been accepted by the receiver of the bribe, and the perpetrator has reported this to a law enforcement authority. An active briber must disclose all the substantive circumstances of the crime before the authority learns about them.
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