The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Poland Aleksandra Gliszczyńska, Katarzyna Sękowska, and Roman Wieruszewski This article presents the most significant issues related to the abolition of the death penalty in Poland, focusing on the evolution of domestic legislation and international obligations undertaken in this matter. The final part of the article outlines current political and social attitudes towards the issue. Regulations on the death penalty in Polish law – from past to present The idea of eliminating the death penalty from Poland’s penal law was first raised after World War I – when Poland regained independence and had to reorganize its legal system – though the road to abolition was neither short nor easy. Capital punishment was absent from a number of drafts of the Penal Code (written by Aleksander Mogilnicki, Emil Stanisław Rappaport, and Edmund Krzymuski), which received strong support within academic circles. Despite this, the Penal Code that was adopted in 1932 (the so-called Makarewicz Code) introduced the death penalty, which could be used as an alternative to life in prison and could be imposed following summary proceedings. The 1932 Penal Code remained in force after World War II. The addition of 11 more laws providing for the death penalty meant that capital punishment could now be imposed for several dozen crimes, and a decree of 16 November 1945 also provided for capital punishment in the wake of summary proceedings. These regulations were aimed at punishing war criminals and provided a useful tool in the fight with the political opposition. Although there is no reliable data on the number of death sentences pronounced or the number of executions carried out between 1948 and 1954, there have been suggestions that around a thousand people were sentenced to death by common courts and perhaps a further two thousand by military courts. What is  Aleksandra Gliszczyńska (Master of European Studies) and Katarzyna Sękowska (Master of Law) are research assistants at the Poznan Human Rights Centre (a research unit of the Institute of Legal Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences). Prof. Roman Wieruszewski is the director of the Poznan Human Rights Centre and a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. 19