Jawność rozprawy głównej a gwarancje przewidziane w Konstytucji

Abstract

The principle of openness, as one of the foremost principles of criminal proceedings, is realised above all during the main trial. The amendment act of law to the code of criminal procedure issued on 10 June 2016 introduced model changes in this regard. The article is devoted to a discussion of mainly these changes in the context of their consistency with the Constitution. The first change has to do with the fact that the public prosecutor has the right to express his or her objection toward the holding of a trial in camera, while such an objection is binding for the court. This regulation is a source of reservations of constitutional nature, for it violates the constitutional right to a fair adjudication of a case by the court. The second fundamental change consists in the establishment, as a principle, of audio-visual registering of the court session by the representatives of media outlets. In these terms, a critical analysis should be conducted upon the removal of the condition of the respect of the important interest of the participant of a criminal proceeding. However, a basically positive evaluation was received by the extension of the scope of the openness of the main trial, expressing a thesis about the constancy of this regulation with the Constitution.