The Impact of Directive 2016/343 on the Protection of the Presumption of Innocence in Poland

Abstract

Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings is one of the key legal instruments adopted by the European Union aiming at strengthening the rights of suspects in criminal proceedings. Its transposition deadline was set for 1 April 2018. However, no amendments aiming explicitly at transposing Directive 2016/343 were introduced in Polish law. The only activity undertaken by the Polish lawmaker was to add in 2019 a footnote to the Criminal Procedure Code indicating that the Code implements the provisions of Directive 2016/343. However, the implementation may be disputed. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse whether Polish law is in compliance with Directive 2016/343 and how the implementation of the EU standard regarding the presumption of innocence works in practice. On the one hand the deficiencies of the Polish law and legal practice are discussed. On the other hand, however, the focus is also on another, more surprising, impact of Directive 2016/343, which is the overinterpretation of certain of its provisions both in judicial practice and legal scholarship. The analysis is concluded with the proposition of amendments that need to be adopted in order to fully implement the EU standard regarding the presumption of innocence as one of the cornerstones of modern criminal proceedings.