Threat to Commit an Offence of a Terrorist Character According to Article 115 § 20 of the Polish Criminal Code – Selected Interpretation Problems

Abstract

The paper discusses the concept of a terrorist threat in the light of Article 115 § 20 of the Polish Criminal Code. The author stresses the relationship between this term and the punishable threat described in the special part of the Criminal Code. The conducted analysis leads to the conclusion that the terrorist threat must be treated as a special type of the punishable threat and, as a result, many real terrorist threats may not meet the criteria of a forbidden act, e.g. because of the lack of an individualised victim. As a result, there appear serious doubts as to whether Polish criminal law meets the requirements of EU law referring to the criminalisation of terrorist threats and, therefore, the introduction of a new type of offence of a terrorist threat and some changes in Article 115 § 20 and Article 115 § 12 of the Criminal Code have been proposed.