According to the website prawo.pl, in 2001, there were over 24,000 people in Polish detention centers, which was a record after the change of the system. Then positive changes began, first in the practice of the prosecutor’s office and courts, and then also a little in the law, and at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, it was possible to limit the use of pretrial detention in Poland.
The website reports that in 2016, the number of people temporarily arrested (those currently in custody) dropped to below 5,000. However, since 2018, the number of people temporarily arrested has been systematically growing, and at the end of 2023, it reached 22,949 applications.
According to the service, after the change of government, there were no immediate changes in this area, despite the fact that its representatives announced it. It was reported that in January this year, there were 8,345 people temporarily detained in penitentiaries, and at the end of May – 8,255.
According to Dr. Mikołaj Małecki from the Jagiellonian University, quoted by the website, the problem of the Polish justice system in recent years has been the abuse of the institution of pre-trial detention, a preventive measure that should be used as a last resort, in accordance with the constitutional principle of proportionality.
According to Dr. Hab. Szymon Tarapata from the Jagiellonian University, it is no secret that since 2016 there has been pressure and even guidelines for prosecutors to apply for temporary detention as often as possible. He added in an interview with Prawo.pl that the number of people temporarily detained is strictly dependent on the number of applications submitted by the prosecutor’s office, and the latter in turn on who manages this institution. He also pointed out that regardless of the prosecutor’s office’s policy, courts invariably approve about 90 percent of such applications. – In such a situation, the increase in the number of applications had to result in an increase in the number of people temporarily detained – emphasized Tarapata.
Prosecutor Anna Adamiak, spokesperson for the Prosecutor General, in response to questions from Prawo.pl regarding changes in the policy of applying temporary detention and de lege ferenda postulates in this respect, informed that the Prosecutor General and the National Prosecutor have not issued guidelines on filing motions for temporary detention by prosecutors.
At the same time, she provided statistics for the first months of this year, which show that a movement in the opposite direction has begun. If last year, an average of almost two thousand applications for temporary arrest were filed with the courts each month, and in recent months an average of 1,350, then this almost 30 percent drop is more of a trend than a coincidence.
Source: PAP/prawo.pl