Protection of Christian values – penal populism or a rational decision on criminalization?
Protection of Christian values – penal populism or a rational decision on criminalization?

Summary/Abstract: Arguments referring to natural law, (public) morality, religion or Christian values are regularly put forward in debates on existing or planned criminal law provisions that will criminalize specific behavior. A prohibition on behavior contrary to the scriptures or the teaching of the Church on pain of criminal penalty encompasses not only abortion, but also euthanasia, (paid) surrogate motherhood, paid donation of organs for transplantation, sterilization, contraception, prostitution and bigamy. The arguments presented for the protection of Christian values are often linked with the protection of human dignity. This article seeks to address the issue of whether such a “pre-legislative” measure (reliance on the protection of Christian values) is a form of penal populism. Parliamentary and non-parliamentary discussions conducted during work on specific provisions of the Criminal Code formed the basis for analysis, with particular emphasis placed on arguments in favor of criminalization of the behaviors mentioned above. The findings were challenged against the concept of legal interest in criminal law, and the concept of human dignity in the Polish legal system (and its place in repressive law). The identified “religious values” and the need to protect them were subjected to analysis conducted against this background, underpinned by the constitutional principle of proportionality of the limitation of human rights and freedoms. The operational tools were not only established definitions of populism, including penal populism, and Weber’s ideal type, i.e. a set of empirically perceived properties of populist style and perspective, sometimes called “the populist syndrome.” The ultimate objective of this article was to establish whether the cases under analysis involve religious populism or a rational decision on criminalization.

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