Directing the act of suicide and ordering its execution in Polish criminal law

Abstract

Under Article 151 of the Penal Code (PC), whoever using persuasion or offering assistance causes a person to take their own life, shall be punished. This extremely general depiction of said regulation leads many interpretative problems. One is proper legal classification of directing the act of suicide and ordering its execution. There are two interpretations that can be proposed. One qualifies the directing of the act of suicide as causing a person to take their own life by helping them, and by ordering them to commit suicide as causing a person to take their own life by persuasion. The other  interpretation suggests that directing the act of suicide and ordering it should be classified, just like most of doctrine does, as an act of homicide. Either of the two concepts may be challenged, while creating a new concept might be perceived as factitious. The author believes that, ultimately, it should be interpreted that directing an act of suicide and ordering its execution are acts that exceed the sanctioning standards of Article 151 PC. This belief results from a conviction that if one must choose one of bad solutions, he should opt for the ‘lesser evil.’