The Presumption of the Age of Victims under International and Domestic Regulations

The question of the security of proceedings and protection for victims involves a whole array of issues. One of them is the principle of the presumption of the age of the victim, which is an important element in the regulations on the legal protection of children in criminal proceedings. The Polish government has indicated that introducing the principle of the presumption of the victim’s age into the Polish legal system was part of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in the UN Agenda 2030. For several years, there has been an emphasis in the field of European law on the need to implement appropriate procedures and take legislative steps for the comprehensive implementation of the obligations under Directive 2011/93/EU of the Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 and Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012. Both of these are to be implemented through the provision of Article 49(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which was introduced into the Code by the Act of 16 December 2020 amending the Code of Criminal Procedure, which came into force on 9 February 2021. The principle provided for in Article 49(b) establishes a legal assumption used to indicate the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure that should be applied to a victim if their age cannot be determined and they may be a minor.