Attention: translated from Polish
Article 156 of the Penal Code refers to the penalisation of pejorative behaviour related to causing serious bodily harm. Undoubtedly, the legally protected good in the quoted provision is human health, which should not be violated by another individual, and if he or she commits such an act, he or she must bear a correspondingly severe penalty.
In Article 156 of the Penal Code, the legislator distinguished serious damage to health, which may consist in:
1) depriving a person of sight, hearing, speech, the ability to procreate,
2) other severe disability, serious incurable or long-term illness, real life-threatening illness, permanent mental illness, total or significant permanent inability to work in the profession or permanent, significant disfigurement or deformity of the body,
3) excision, infibulation or other permanent and significant mutilation of the female genital organ.
It is worth noting that point 3 of the article in question refers directly to serious damage to health, which results in the death of the victim. The perpetrator may be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of not less than 5 years or life imprisonment for the committed act.
The introduction of Article 156 § 1 item 3 to the Penal Code results from the need for comprehensive regulation of criminal liability for the consequences of the most serious crimes against human health and life. This provision penalizes causing serious damage to health
in the form of death of another person, supplementing the catalogue of consequences specified in Article 156 § 1 points 1 and 2 of the Penal Code, m.in. deprivation of a person’s sight, hearing, speech, ability to procreate, and other severe disability or permanent mental illness, other serious incurable or long-term illness.
The introduction of this provision fills a legal gap that could arise in situations where the effects of an act did not fit into the existing definitions, and at the same time their gravity justified the qualification of the act as a crime. Thus, Article 156(1)(3) of the Penal Code meets the requirements of the principle of proportionality of the imposition of punishment and performs the function of general and specific prevention of criminal law, protecting one of the basic legal interests – human life and health.
