| Summary: | The 2019 Act Amending the Penal Code introduces, among other provisions, legislative modifi cations concerning rules in the area of penal legal responsibility of juvenile off enders for crimes they have committed. These changes were directed at increasing the repressiveness against juvenile offenders, manifested by introduction of an obligatory additional premise and a relatively mandatory premise to apply criminal responsibility in relation to this group of perpetrators. This amendment signifi cantly limits the possibility to implement the principle of accurate penal legal response in cases where application of penal law as an ultima ratio seems inadvisable. The said relationship is discussed in the article in the context of the theory of law and the concept of the presumption of law, which combines facts related to the age of the perpetrator with the alleged facts of the culpability, and as a consequence the ability to bear penal responsibility on terms provided for in the code, in contrast to the responsibility contemplated in the Act on proceedings concerning rights of juveniles. The author postulates that this relationship should be reversed, which appears as a legislative challenge that can signifi cantly reduce the level of repressiveness of regulations contained in the Amending Act.
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