Czynności sprawdzające a proces karny. Wzajemne związki i relacje.

Any criminal action is inadvertently connected with deep infringement of basic human rights such as privacy and freedom. Inherent restrictions of criminal procedure touch not only a suspect person but also a wider scope of other people. Any person summoned as a witness is obligated to appear and testify, that sometimes means the necessity of testifying against a colleague or a dangerous criminal or at least the needs of investment of a number of hours. Also another actions connected with criminal proceedings such as search and seizure, or compulsory medical examination relate to substantial restriction of human autonomy. Furthermore, the conduct of any investigation, especially in intricate, high-profile cases, demands vast financial and human resources. Therefore, taking into account already mentioned effects of any criminal action, it is fully understandable that criminal procedure should be initiated only in legitimate situations. In any legal system exists the need of establishing a threshold that must be transgressed in order to justify the initiation of a criminal action. The Polish code of criminal procedure (CCP) in article 303, stipulates that a criminal action can be started only if there is justified suspicion that an offence has been committed. Good reason, probable cause or reasonable suspicion are highly elusive notions that are tough to be precisely defined. Therefore, it is often hard to state whether submitted materials have already constituted or not yet the requirement that is portrayed in article 303 CCP. Thus in article 307 CCP the construction of checking activities and the institution of a verification procedure is regulated. Verifying activities which are generally based on informal actions are connected with a smaller dose of infringements of human rights, simultaneously they are effective enough to check an introductory problem of criminal proceedings that is a question of a probable cause existing. The verifying proceedings in the context of article 303 CCP have the multitude of functions. On one hand they provide guarantee for an average citizen that criminal action shall not be initiated against him in a totally discretionary situation. Checking activities also protect the agencies responsible for the proceedings against unreasonable and futile work. On the other hand they eliminate the risk of negligence. Verifying proceedings allow to check information that do not constitute probable cause in the meaning of the article 303 CCP, but nevertheless they evoke a certain level of suspicion. It is fully justifiable to remember that any information, even one that seems not to be very serious may cover an aggravated crime. This reason contributes to the fact that checking activities that precede formal criminal proceedings constitute one of the most crucial institutions of a criminal system. The history of this institution confirms the significant role of verifying activities. The elimination of so called summary proceedings (from a criminal code from 1928), that allowed to check the first information about committed offence, took place in 1949. It caused that procedural practice created informal activities whose aim was to replace summary proceedings. The significance of needs of procedural practice in the process of inception of verifying proceedings contributed to the fact that the verification of preliminary information about committed crime is severely shaped by forensic rules among which the pragmatic rule of effectiveness plays the central role. The position and the prominence of effectiveness during the course of verifying proceedings causes that activities that are conducted on the basis of article 307 CCP have to be executed in accordance with the major rules of criminal proceeding especially in harmony with the rule of material truth, the rule of objectivity, and the rule of unfettered judgement of evidence. These rules stipulate respectively that: the basis of any kind of determination shall be established in the form of a true fact; The agencies being in charge of criminal proceedings shall be obligated to inquire into, and duly consider the circumstances both in favour and to the prejudice of the accused; the agencies responsible for the proceedings shall make a decision on the basis of their own conviction, which shall be founded upon evidence taken and appraised at their own discretion, with due consideration to the principles of sound reasoning and personal experience. Only if the agencies being in charge of verifying activities execute their duties congruently with these rules they will be able to achieve their aim and verify the fact of existence of a probable cause that crime has been committed. This, in turn, what has been already outlined, has a grand and significant value. The main thesis of the presented paper is the thought that the way of inception of verifying proceedings caused inherent subjection of checking activities to the criminal procedure, especially supreme rules, and therefore, the analysis of the impact of chief criminal regulations on verifying activities allows to depict their real nature.