by Admin2 | Aug 5, 2024 | news-en
The answer to this question may be somewhat surprising. Polish law, under the provisions of the Family and Guardianship Code, imposes alimony obligations in certain cases (which have already been described in detail on this page).
The problem of non-payment of alimony is, unfortunately, a clearly noticeable phenomenon.
This clearly negative phenomenon was also noticed by the legislator, who, in order to combat this problem, introduced severe sanctions for failure to meet the alimony obligation, including the most serious ones - criminal sanctions.
In accordance with Article 209 §1 of the Penal Code, non-payment of alimony is a crime.
A person who evades the obligation to pay alimony
- 1. specified in terms of the amount by a court decision, a settlement concluded before a court or another body or another agreement,
- 2. if the total amount of arrears resulting from this is the equivalent of at least 3 periodic benefits
- 3. or if the delay in the arrears of a benefit other than periodic benefits is at least 3 months,
shall be subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to one year.
This provision should be considered quite severe, which is an expression of justified disapproval of this type of action. Moreover, the Code also introduces a qualified type of the crime of non-payment of alimony, punishable by a higher penalty.
If failure to pay alimony exposes the entitled person to the inability to satisfy basic living needs, the perpetrator may be deprived of liberty for up to 2 years (Article 209 §1a of the Criminal Code).
Non-payment of alimony is a crime prosecuted at the request of the injured party, a social welfare body or a body taking action against the alimony debtor.
However, if the person entitled to alimony has been granted appropriate family benefits or cash benefits paid in the event of ineffective enforcement of alimony, then the prosecution is carried out ex officio.
So to answer the question posed at the beginning - failure to pay alimony can have serious consequences, including even a prison sentence.
by Admin2 | Jul 1, 2024 | news-en
In its judgment of 17 April 2024 (II KK 115/24), the Supreme Court stated that in the case of multiple crimes, which include the offense under Article 209 § 1 of the Criminal Code, there is no res judicata if the previous final conviction concerns only a fragment of the act charged later. Evading the obligation to pay alimony during the period not covered by the final conviction is already a new criminal act, entailing further criminal liability, and the time limits of the next crime should be precisely defined, taking into account the content of the previous conviction.
In the justification of the aforementioned judgment, we read that from the list of periods of non-payment of alimony offenses assigned to the accused under the judgments of the District Court for Warsaw Praga Południe in Warsaw, i.e. the order judgment reference number file reference III K 870/20 (from 3 August 2018 to 10 January 2020) and the chronologically earlier penal order judgment with file reference III K 899/20 (from 1 October 2018 to 20 March 2019), it clearly follows that the penal order judgment appealed against in cassation determined the time of committing the act under Article 209 § 1 of the Penal Code by the accused in such a way that it fully overlapped with the previous final conviction for the offence of failure to pay alimony under Article 209 § 1 of the Criminal Code, and moreover, it went beyond this time frame, essentially being reduced to two periods falling: from 3 August 2018 to 30 September 2018 and from 21 March 2019 to 10 January 2020.
Therefore, indisputably, when ruling in case file reference III K 870/20, the court on the merits committed a gross violation of Art. 504 § 1 point 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provision requires a precise - in the circumstances of a given case - determination of the time of the commission of the crime. In the description of the act attributed by virtue of a penal order, similarly to the judgment issued after the main hearing (Art. 413 § 2 point 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), it is necessary to include not only the manner of committing the crime, its possible effects, the type of attacked interest protected by law, but also the time and place of its commission. Precise determination of the time of committing the offence, as indicated, is of crucial importance for holding the perpetrator criminally liable (see judgments of the Supreme Court: of 19 March 2019, IV KK 58/19 and of 20 April 2017, V KK 39/17).
by Admin2 | Jun 3, 2024 | news-en
The court with jurisdiction in alimony cases is always the district court, even if the value of the subject matter of the dispute exceeds PLN 100,000. The value of the subject matter of the dispute in alimony cases is the annual value of alimony. Therefore, even if their annual value exceeds PLN 100,000 (i.e. PLN 8,333 per month), the district court remains competent (Article 17 point 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure)
by Admin2 | May 2, 2024 | news-en
The District Court in Sieradz, in its judgment of December 18, 2019 (I Ca 494/19), reminded that the upper limit of alimony benefits is the earning and financial capabilities of the obligor, even if all the justified needs of the person entitled to alimony are not covered within these limits.
by Admin2 | Apr 11, 2024 | news-en
Pursuant to Art. 61 of the Social Welfare Act, the persons obliged to pay a fee for staying in a social welfare home are in the following order:
- a resident of the house, and in the case of minors, a statutory representative from the child's income,
- spouse, descendants before ascendants,
- the commune from which the person was referred to the social welfare home
- however, the persons and the commune specified in points 2 and 3 are not obliged to pay fees if the resident of the house pays the full amount.
The Act does not specify whether the spouse's obligation precedes the obligation of the descendants, or which specific persons among the descendants or ascendants are to be charged the fee. The jurisprudence has also not developed a uniform position in this respect,
Some judgments refer to the Family and Guardianship Code and model the order of payment on the maintenance obligation (so the Provincial Administrative Court in Kielce in the judgment of January 10, 2019, II SA/Ke 759/18, LEX no. 2619010).
In other judgments, when determining the order of charging descendants or ascendants, it is possible to take into account benefits received by them from a resident of a social welfare home (Judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court in Gdańsk of November 28, 2019, III SA/Gd 444/19, LEX no. 2758821.
Finally, there is also a view that all persons from a given group should be charged fees and their situation may be differentiated only due to their income (judgment of September 21, 2017, I SA/Wa 704/17, LEX No. 2376391, Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw). In such a situation, the authority should conduct proceedings simultaneously against all persons belonging to the same group of persons obliged to pay the fee for the resident's stay in the social welfare home. These persons should be notified of the initiation of proceedings and should be parties to these proceedings, and they should all be subject to the decision issued on establishing the obligation to pay for a resident's stay in a social welfare home" (similarly, the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw of June 27, 2018, VIII SA/Wa 198/18, LEX no. 2523717).
