The article addresses the problem of fabrication and falsification of scientific research in the context of the role that lawmakers can play in combating this practice. Legisla­tors may establish organisational units specialising in combating scientific miscon­duct (also referred to as ‘research misconduct’), having the authority to, for instance, to conduct investigations or recommend penalties. A researcher who commits such misconduct may face not only disciplinary, but also civil, administrative or criminal liability. The article discusses the results of a survey asking 70 Polish academics about their opinion on the role of legislators in countering fabrication and falsifica­tion in research. The findings show, for example, that respondents mostly support disciplinary responsibility for such misconduct (81%), and also believe that legisla­tors should combat this practice using ‘soft’ measures, such as promoting codes of ethics in research (70%). Half of those surveyed wanted such behaviour crimina­lised. According to almost half of the respondents, the Polish legislator does not combat such misconduct effectively.

The subject of the study are changes in the statutory form of cash benefit resulting from the amendment to the Penal Code of 5 August 2022. The aim of the article is to verify the hypothesis, according to which the essence of the introduced regu lations is to strengthen the position of a pecuniary benefit as a repressive and com pensatory measure. The adopted solutions mean that the new model of pecuniary benefits breaks away from the political and criminal assumptions that determined the normative shape of this penal measure in the original version of the Criminal Code of 1997.

The paper discusses the issue of cryopreservation of human embryos from the perspective of Polish criminal law. It aims in particular to reconstruct the limits of criminal responsibility for the failure of obligatory cryopreservation of embryos not transferred into the woman’s body as well as for performing such intervention or keeping embryos in a frozen state without legal grounds or against medical standards. The criminal responsibility for the enumerated actions and omissions has two fundamental grounds. The first one is the Article 78 of the Act of 25 June 2015 on Infertility Treatment penalising i.a. the violation of legal conditions for cryopreservation, whereas the second one includes offences against life and health underthe Article 83 of the ITA and the Article 157a para. 1 of the Criminal Code. The detailed scope of criminalisation in the area of cryopreservation of human embryos is, however, difficult to delineate and even quite random due to the serious shortcomings in the legislative technique.

The amendment of Article 209 of the Polish Criminal Code, which took place on 31 May 2017 with the entry into force of the Act of 23 March 2017 on Amendments to the Criminal Code Act and the Act on Assistance to Persons Entitled to Maintenance (Journal of Laws of 2017, item 952), resulted in significant changes not only in the wording of the said article itself, but also in the picture of the statistical effects of pre-trial and court proceedings for the crime in question. From the very beginning, the said amendment raised questions and reservations among a substantial number of supporters of the established line of judicial decisions issued in the domain of criminal law. They considered it unfit to keep to the principles of adequacy and proportionality, as well as posing a threat to a significant – and ultimately destructive – increase in the burden on law enforcement authorities and the judiciary in general. At the same time, taking into account the main objectives and ideas of the amendment, which was intended in particular to improve the enforcement of maintenance obligations, it needs to be said that it proved ineffective and was actually a manifestation of penal populism.

The inspiration behind the article is the two new provisions of the Polish Criminal Code, penalising the up to now unpunished behaviour leading up to murder, introduced by means of the Act of 13 June 2019 on the Amendment of the Act – Criminal Code and Certain Other Acts. Despite the doubts regarding the constitutionality of the act in question, it is reasonable to look into the mechanism of preparation to murder and contract killing, if only because of the fact that these solutions may return in further draft amendments to the Criminal Code. The analysed provisions has given rise to a more general reflection on the legitimacy of penalisation of preparation to murder in the light of contemporary indications of the theory of criminalisation. The discussion also features remarks on the already functioning types of prohibited acts, used, among others, to criminalise acts undertaken at the stage of preparation to murder. The conclusions have led to a demand for the adoption of a provision sanctioning an incomplete variant of preparation to murder and for a total abandonment of separate criminalisation of contract killing.

The purpose of the article is to discuss the new regulation provided in Art. 189d item 4 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, i.e. the impact of the circumstances of the offender’s contribution to the occurrence of administrative tort on the administrative penalty. First, after conducting an analysis, I come into a conclusion that the said contribution does not affect the very fact of being held liable, but is taken consideration only at the stage of determining the amount of penalty. This proves that its application is limited. Then, I proceed with a critical analysis of the existing limitation, referring to the fundamental principles that should be taken into account in the process of law enforcement, which involves also imposing sanctions and determining the role of administrative financial penalties.