Możliwość orzeczenia zakazu zajmowania stanowiska (stanowisk), wykonywania zawodu (zawodów) lub prowadzenia działalności związanej z wychowaniem, leczeniem, edukacją małoletnich lub opieką nad nimi za przechowywanie lub posiadanie treści pornograficznych z udziałem małoletniego – analiza empiryczna i formalno-dogmatyczna

Abstract

The objective of this study is to answer the question whether adjudicating a ban on holding a position (or positions), practicing a profession (or professions) or conducting activities related to the upbringing, treatment, education or care of minors for storing or possessing pornographic content with the participation of a minor child is legally justified de lege lata. The authors present their standpoint on the basis of a detailed analysis of the elements of penal measures under Articles 39(2) and 39(2a) of the Polish Criminal Code and the conditions for adjudicating these measures provided for in Articles 41(§1) and 41(§1a) of the Criminal Code. For this purpose, a review of Canadian, American, Swiss, German and Czech studies on the correlation between crimes involving child pornography and physical sexual abuse of minors has been conducted. At a later stage, a formal-dogmatic exegesis of rights protected by the types of prohibited acts criminalizing the possession or storage of child pornography, the concept of ‘damage to a minor’ and the collision arising from the application of Article 41(§1) and Article 41(§1a, sentence 2) of the Criminal Code has been undertaken. The conclusion that emerges from both the hitherto achievements of empirical research and the appropriately made formal-dogmatic analysis indicates that at present there are no legal grounds to adjudicate the said criminal ban in the case of possessed or stored, and not self-created, child pornography. Nonetheless, a possible social unrest arising from the fact of a professional contact with children by persons having or storing such materials may be accommodated by a simple amendment to the Article 41(§1a, sentence 2) of the Criminal Code, as proposed by the authors.