Reforma prawa karno-administracyjnego Polski Ludowej z 1958 r.
Reform of the Penal and Administrative Law of the Polish People’s Republic of 1958

Summary/Abstract: The Law of 15th December, 1951 on Penal and Administrative Case Law introduced a socialist model for settling misdemeanour cases. Police courts, functioning on the basis of the social factor, were established at local administrative bodies—National Councils presidiums. The courts were banned from placing people in custody, introducing the socialist punishment of corrective work instead. After the breakthrough of 1956, the legislative started to work on amending the Law on Penal and Administrative Case Law due to the fact that Władysław Gomułka, the head of the government, was a vocal proponent of harsh penalisation as a means of combating the widespread social problem of hooliganism and alcoholism. The amendment, implemented in December 1958, was designed to introduce better conditions for the police courts, which would allow them to function more efficiently within the boundaries delineated by the government. The amendment substituted corrective work with custody, to be used in the cases of the socalled hooligan misdemeanours, and those in which the perpetrator had been found in a state of intoxication. The increase in repressiveness of the penal and administrative case law also found its manifestation in the authorisation for the police courts to substitute fines with replacement custody and a significant increase in the amount of the fines. In the cases where the perpetrator was sentenced to jail imprisonment, the police courts were assigned court oversight; however, in the cases where the perpetrator was fined or placed in replacement custody, the appeals were filed to police courts of higher instances. Due to the slow codification in the matter of misdemeanour law, the amended Law on Penal and Administrative Case Law served as the basis for penal and administrative case law of the Polish People’s Republic up until 1972.

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