Rule 63 A prisoner shall never be punished twice for the same act or conduct.
Executive Penal Code (Dz.U. of 1997, No 90, item 557, as amended)
Article 7 (1) A convict may challenge the decision of the Chief Judge or an
authorised judge, penitentiary judge, director of the penitentiary unit, pre-trial
detention centre, as well as regional director and General Director of the Prison
Service or a person administering other penitentiary unit specified by executive penal
law and penitentiary commission or a probation officer, due to its incompliance with
law, unless the Act provides otherwise.
Article 142.(1) A convict is subject to disciplinary responsibility for the intentional violation
of an injunction or prohibition arising from a legal act, the rules and regulations or other
stipulations adopted pursuant to a legal act or the order established in the penal institution
or in the workplace, hereinafter referred to as “offence”.
§ 2. If a disciplinary offence bears the hallmarks of criminal offence, a convict is subject to
disciplinary responsibility, unless the offence was made outside the penal institution.
Article 145. (1) Imposing a disciplinary penalty, the degree of culpability and an
individualization rule shall be taken into account, bearing in mind, in particular, type and
circumstances of an act, attitude towards the offence, previous attitude, features of character
and health condition of a convict, as well as educational objectives.
§ 2. Before imposing a disciplinary penalty an accused person shall be heard, as well as the
ward supervisor’s opinion, and where necessary, also the opinion of a person filing an
application for imposing a penalty and opinions of other persons, as well as testimonies of
the witnesses. Proceedings may take place in the presence of other convicts, if supervisory
aspects do require.
Article 146. (1) One disciplinary penalty shall be imposed only for one offence.
If a convict committed more offences before being punished for any of them, he/she should
receive one punishment, proportionally more severe.
§ 2. Repeated imposition of a disciplinary penalty must not take place in a way that makes it
a direct prolongation of serving the same penalty, unless the total period of imposed
penalties exceeds a presupposed period of the penalty.
§ 3. In cases justified by educational aspects, the penitentiary court may refrain from a
disciplinary punishment, suspend the execution of an imposed penalty for up to three months,
change it into a less severe one or pardon. After the period of suspension, an imposed
penalty shall be deemed executed.
During each visit made by the National Preventive Mechanism, particular
attention was paid to the question of disciplinary responsibility. It results from
interviews made, that the most frequent problem is the failure to inform convicts about
the possibility to challenge a disciplinary penalty imposing decision to the penitentiary
court (PDC Warszawa-Grochów, PDC in Choszczno, Prisons in Goleniów and
Rzeszów-Załęże). However, in the majority of visited penitentiary units, the
interviewed prisoners covered by disciplinary responsibility made no complaints.
These persons indicated that before the imposition of a disciplinary penalty they had
been heard by the director of a unit and instructed about the possibility to challenge the
court's decision.
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