Experience Of The Republic Of Poland Regarding The Normative And Legal Definition Of The Concept Of Corruption

Abstract

The scientific works are studied, as well as the provisions of the current legislation of the Republic of Poland in terms of the regulatory and legal definition of the concept of corruption. The theoretical justifications of Polish scientists regarding the need to consider the phenomenon of corruption through the prism of processes inherent in today's socio-economic realities are established. Common and distinctive features of the method of legally enshrining the definition of “corruption” in the legislation of Ukraine and the Republic of Poland are identified. The absence of a definition of the concept of “illegitimate benefit” and a broad interpretation of its forms due to the use of the attribute “any” are revealed. Therefore, the establishment of property and personal benefit and, as a result, its illegality is a rather general and unclear process that requires recourse to judicial practice. The article emphasizes the differences in the legislative definition of the terms “unlawful benefit” and “unlawful advantage”, as well as their definitions in the theory of criminal law. Even though the Civil Code of the Republic of Poland contains the concept of “unlawful advantage”, the use of its features when establishing “unlawful benefit” is erroneous. Unlawful advantage is a special (separate) type of unjust enrichment, which significantly narrows the list of possible forms of unlawful benefit. It is found that bringing a person to criminal liability for committing acts of corruption is possible not only by applying the legal norms of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Poland, but also by applying the provisions of other laws. Some legislative acts were identified that contain an indication of the unlawful behaviour of a person and possible forms of punishment in the event of committing such an act (Laws of the Republic of Poland “On Pharmaceutical Law” and “On Reimbursement of Medicinal Products, Special Food Products and Medical Products”). It was established that despite the provision of a separate Chapter XXIX “Crimes against the activities of state bodies and local self-government bodies” in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Poland, there are some articles from other Chapters that indicate criminal liability for corruption offenses (electoral, administrative, economic, creditor, tender, etc. corruption). The provisions of several Polish laws establishing criminal liability for corruption-related offenses have been analysed. Discrepancies have been identified between the Ukrainian and Polish legal systems, particularly in the area of extra-codified criminal law provisions. Drawing on the analysis of current Polish legislation and the doctrinal positions of Ukrainian criminal law, potential approaches for incorporating foreign experience to address specific issues have been proposed.