Kara śmierci w polskim prawie wojskowym 1944–1969

Abstract

Capital punishment is an exceptional type of penal sanction for the most serious crimes in penal legislation of countries which permit such penalty. In the period of the Second Polish Republic a capital punishment judgement in military penal law was permitted for crimes committed at the time of war, often having negative impact on the combat capacity and morale of a given military unit. Following the example of legislation of the Second Polish Republic, authors of the Polish Army’s Penal Code from 1944 assumed that a capital punishment judgement should apply to extremely serious crimes committed by soldiers, usually “in the field”, in the course of war operations. Inclusion of a chapter concerning political crimes punishable with serious penal sanctions (including capital punishment) into the military code of 1944, as well as moving civil cases of people accused of such acts under the jurisdiction of military courts, led to a situation where this code (in judiciary practice since the beginnings of the Polish People’s Republic) became one of the most repressive legal acts, taking into account the number of death penalties adjudged under its provisions.