Wkład Profesora Stefana Glasera w doktrynę polskiego prawa karnego okresu międzywojnia
Professor Stefan Glaser's Contribution to the Doctrine of Polish Criminal Law in the Interwar Period

Summary/Abstract: The scholarly output of S. Glaser covers a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from the philosophy of punishment, or more broadly the philosophy of criminal law, through issues belonging to the core of the dogmatics of criminal law, considerations devoted to the institutions of sentencing, offences in particular, and finally questions of international criminal law. He also studied procedural issues. In each of these areas he published a significant number of works, including monographs and commentaries. In his research he took into account both the philosophical perspective and criminological issues. He employed the dogmatic method with expertise and precision. He addressed problems fundamental to criminal law and criminal procedure. In many respects he pointed to shortcomings in the applicable legal regulations, gaps and imprecisions in regulation, seeking a satisfactory solution to problems troubling theorists and causing difficulties for practitioners. Of particular importance are his works devoted to the philosophy of punishment, as well as the philosophy of criminal law analysed from its perspective, and the foundations of liability for participation in the commission of an offence. In his analyses concerning punishment, he sought to link two opposing approaches: retributive and utilitarian. While showing a clear sympathy for retributivism, he also recognized certain merits of the utilitarian approach. Seeking a kind of compromise between the competing conceptions, he pointed to the harm proportionately imposed on the perpetrator as the fundamental purpose and meaning of punishment. At the same time, he did not exclude punishment from also serving preventive, protective, and educational functions, provided that their fulfilment is possible only subsidiarily and on condition that it does not violate the essential nature of punishment. In the area of the foundations of liability for participation in the commission of an offence, he dealt primarily with the paradoxes of the model developed by J. Makarewicz. In particular, recognizing the limitations of liability for incitement and assistance, he advocated the use of the construction of indirect perpetration to resolve doubtful cases. He justified its place in the Polish criminal law system on grounds of logic, the needs of criminal policy, and the preservation of certain elements of accessoriness in the Polish conception of incitement and assistance. In this respect he remained in clear opposition to the position presented by J. Makarewicz, the creator of the conception. As regards liability for the perpetrating forms of participation, he pointed to the consequences of the erroneous failure to include, in the general part of the 1932 Criminal Code, a provision establishing the grounds for liability for joint perpetration. He consistently maintained that, for this reason, under the 1932 Criminal Code, the use of an extrastatutory construction of joint perpetration to attribute liability was excluded in cases now referred to as parallel joint perpetration. In both areas, S. Glaser's views remain relevant, constituting a significant supplement to criminal-law analyses.

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