Summary

Violation of procedural restrictions was criminalised in the Penal Code in 2007. On 24 January 2007, the Act on Amendments to the Penal Code and Acts related to its Implementation was adopted, adding Section 300¹ to the list of elements of the offence included in Chapter 17, Division 2 of the Penal Code. Subsections 300¹ (1) and (2) of the Penal Code provide for a punishment for a knowing violation of a procedural restriction established by the Anti-corruption Act, if the violation of procedural restriction is large or particularly large scale.

Today, the violation of a procedural restriction has been criminalised for more than 10 years. Nevertheless, there is no Supreme Court practice which would treat this criminal offence. On the one hand, we could believe that this provision has not been implemented much. On the other hand, considering the quite low sanction rates of the elements of the criminal offence, the cases might not have reached the Supreme Court for different reasons.

Besides little judicial practice, there is also a lack of legal literature that discusses the violation of a procedural restriction. Several legal issues have been raised in the pre-trial procedure in connection with the implementation of Section 300¹ of the Penal Code, to which it has not been easy to find answers due to a lack of judicial practice and legal literature. The article first gives an overview of the nature of the violation of a procedural restriction, followed by a separate discussion of problems and issues raised in practice and the possible solutions.