Referendarz sądowy w postępowaniu karnym (uwagi na tle Projektu zmian w kodeksie postępowania karnego)
Court referendary in criminal proceedings (remarks on the background of the draft law on the amendment of the code of criminal procedure)

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to look more closely at the institution of court referendary, who is a judicial authority introduced to criminal proceedings in 2011. Ills initial role,which was to help in the course of proceedings, and significance are going to be expanded under the government’s draft bill to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Criminal Code and certain other laws, which was submitted to the Parliament in November 2012 (Sejm’s document No. 870). The Author presents the characteristic of a court referendary as a body of legal protection as defined in the case law of the Constitutional Tribunal. The Tribunal allows to perform some activities by court referendaries in civil proceedings, not seeing any significant legal obstacles to provide them with some competence also in criminal proceedings. I low ever, the kind of competences court referendaries would be entitled to perform after the entry into force of the draft amendment raises some doubts. It is pointed out that in any case, a court referendary may be eligible for activities related to decisions regarding criminal charges. A large part of the article is also devoted to procedural interactions between the two judicial bodies which are a court and a court referendary. The shape of this relationship emerging from the draft demonstrates its vague nature.Providing the two bodies of different status with the same competencies may give rise to disputes in practice. In this context the problem of the independence of court referendaries is also discussed.

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