Introduction of the provision of Article 306a to the penal code, penalizing the behaviour consisting in the change of indications of the odometer, was the legislator’s answer to a quite common practice of modifying the actual condition of the vehicle odometer in order to conceal the actual number of kilometres driven. Such modifications usually aim at falsifying either the actual wear and tear of the vehicle which is being sold or the actual working hours of a professional driver giving him an opportunity to extend them beyond the limits provided by law. The article presents the results of the study of preparatory and judicial proceedings in the initial period of functioning of the provision of Article 306a of the Penal Code in the Polish legal system, i.e. in the period from the entry into force of the provision on 25 May 2019 to 31 December 2020 and assesses the effectiveness of the introduced type of crime in combating behaviors covered by its disposition.
This chapter summarizes the research findings presented in the chapters on national criminal policies above in this volume. It also puts forward some recommendations to national policy makers aimed at improving national criminal policies on illicit tobacco trade. This volume presents a comprehensive analysis of criminal policies that govern the illicit tobacco trade and that have been adopted by six of the Member States of the European Union. This comparative chapter identifies common features of these policies and summarizes the research to prepare for deeper examination and to support practical application by national policymakers. The research on national systems confirms the preliminary presumption underlying the research that on the national level, the fight against the illicit trade of tobacco products is primarily conducted through the enforcement of criminal law. It issues from the chapters above that administrative (tax or fiscal) law play a secondary, subsidiary role with regard to the criminal legal framework. The main goals of any national criminal law are to prevent crime (primarily by deterrence), bring offenders to justice and enforce sanctions. Effectiveness of criminal law is very difficult to assess, as evaluation criteria (such as for instance a decrease of the number of committed offences or the increase of the number of convictions) are fluent and, even if agreed upon by researchers, they change over time. However, attempting to pinpoint "an effective way to fight against illicit
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