Gloss to the Judgement of the District Court in Opole of 10 December 2018 (VII Ka 956/18, Unpublished)

Abstract

In the commented judgement, the court discharged the responsibility of individuals who presented banners with photographs of human remains after abortions in front of the obstetrics hospital in Opole. They had been charged with public display of obscenity (Article 141 of the Petty Offences Code). Not only the discharge was wrong, although it is possible to apply Article 140 of the Petty Offences Code instead of Article 141, as the formerly prescribed responsibility for public indecency. The court applied also a completely erroneous interpretation of the presentation of public indecency, as limited to the intimate and gender sphere. Historical, comparative, linguistic, teleological and systematic interpretations indicate that public decency includes a commonly accepted and required public behavior, the violation of which causes or may cause negative reactions of others in the form of embarrassment, scandal, anger, opposition, condemnation. Such punishable public indecency is any that opposes cultural norms, rules of social coexistence, accepted customs of public behavior of individuals.

Keywords

• działalność pro-life
• wolność wypowiedzi
• moralność publiczna
• porządek publiczny
• odpowiedzialność karna