Legal Question to the Constitutional Tribunal. Expectations and Directions of Changes

This study is devoted to the analysis of the provision of Article 193 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, which authorizes each court to submit a legal question to the Polish constitutional court about the compliance of a normative act with the Constitution, ratified international treaties or the act, if the answer to a legal question depends on the resolution of a case pending before the court. It is worth considering the expectations and directions of changes of the analyzed institution against the background of the applicable legal provisions. The practice of applying a legal question to the Constitutional Tribunal needs to be examined. During these more than thirty-five years, the constitutional measure has undergone some transformations. The main goal of this work is to assess the title legal question through the prism of over three decades of its operation.

The article is devoted to the study of modern problematic issues of causation in criminal law. These issues include, in particular, the issue of relevance of causation in criminal law itself, and the specifics of manifestations of relevance of causation in criminal law. The article notes that the purpose of scientific research is to identify and analyze the characteristics and criteria of relevant causation. The methods of the presented study include dialectical, systemic-structural, logical, etc. The results of the study are summarized in a number of important provisions. The author emphasizes the importance of the study of causation in criminal law as a formal and legal one, which is related to the study of causation as relevant, meeting the requirements and solving the problems of modern criminal law. The article notes that the characterization of causation in criminal law should not be limited to the connection between an act and socially dangerous consequences, since causality expressed by causation is manifested in a combination of components which are part of the content of various criminal law institutions. The article examines some characteristics of the relevance of causation in criminal law. Attention is drawn to the importance of legal and technical reflection of causation in criminal law as a condition for the relevance of causation. The article notes that the formalization of causation is the basis for considering such a connection as relevant (meeting legal requirements). The author examines institutional and inter-institutional manifestations of causation in criminal law. Furthermore, the author examines the causal manifestations which combine a criminal offense (in particular, a crime) and the legal consequences provided for by criminal law in relation to the subject who committed the offense. The article examines the peculiarities of causation in relation to certain criminal law institutions. The main conclusions of the study are the following: the need to clarify the criteria of relevant causation, the statement of relevant causation in criminal law within certain criminal law institutions, the need to consider causation in a broader criminal law context, and not only within the corpus delicti, etc.