On the Proposal to Change the Upper Limit on the Penalty of Deprivation of Liberty and Abandon the Penalty of 25 Years’ Imprisonment

Summary The article analyses and evaluates the proposal to amend the regulations concerning the penalty of deprivation of liberty that consists in the eradication of the fixed penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment from the catalogue of penalties laid down in Criminal Code and exceeding the upper time limit of the penalty of deprivation of liberty from up to 15 to up to 30 years. The article presents the opinions of the doctrine and the judicature on the nature and function of the penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment and other penalties of deprivation of liberty, points out practical difficulties indicated in the literature that are connected with the imposition of the fixed penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment in case of perpetrators cooperating in the commission of crime, and presents proposals to amend the regulations by means of successive CC amendment bills from 2000 up to now, as well as the opinion of the doctrine on the proposed changes. The considerations presented in the article lead to the conclusion that neither the proposal to eliminate the fixed penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment nor exceeding the so-called standard penalty of deprivation of liberty to 30 years deserves approval.