The prosecution service in the Polish legal system

Abstract

The Polish Prosecution Service is a very powerful entity equipped with various instruments that allow individual prosecutors to deeply engage throughout the criminal process. Even though there is little discretion available to them, as they are bound by the legality principle, Polish prosecutors are important decisionmakers when it comes to the conduct and supervision of criminal investigations. This applies to all criminal investigations as they cannot be conducted by private parties due to the binding force of the officiality principle. Presumably this would not be a problem if the independence of the Prosecution Service would be respected and if the prosecutors would not be fully subordinated to the executive power. However, as the personal union between the Prosecutor General and Minister of Justice has been established in 2016 the independence of the prosecutors from the political influence must be since questioned. This set up, paired up with the highly hierarchical nature of the Prosecution Service where the Prosecutor General and supervisory prosecutors are allowed to give orders in every criminal investigation, forces individual prosecutors to comply with expectations of those who are above them. The existing mechanisms are thus treated as a method of exerting pressure, including political, on prosecutors for the sake of the short-term needs of those who are in power.