The owners of the plot on which part of the dining area was built appealed the Prosecutor’s Office’s decision. Investigators had previously found that no law had been broken by the people responsible for supervising the construction. However, the court overturned the Prosecutor’s Office’s decision. In its reasoning, the court pointed out that during the expansion of the bar’s dining area in 2022, a county official knew that the construction had crossed the boundary of a neighboring property. Although the official claims that, when issuing the occupancy permit for the premises after the expansion, he relied on statements from the construction manager and surveyor, the court stated that this did not release him from the obligation to verify those statements during the mandatory building inspection.
The court also identified numerous shortcomings in the Prosecutor’s Office’s examination of the case. In the court’s view, the Prosecutor’s Office had not collected evidence sufficient and necessary to issue a substantively justified decision. The court found flaws in the assessment of the evidence conducted by the prosecutor assessor, and, in the court’s opinion, that assessment was at least premature with regard to the factual and legal findings made.
Therefore, the court found that the Prosecutor’s Office must investigate more thoroughly whether the official, as a public official, had failed to perform his duties or exceeded his authority and thereby acted to the detriment of the public or private interest.
At the same time, the court noted that the mere improper conduct of a procedure by an official does not yet constitute abuse of authority or failure to perform official duties, and therefore does not in itself incur liability under Article 231 §1 of the Penal Code, punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.
The District Prosecutor’s Office in Bolesławiec informed us that it is conducting the proceedings in accordance with the decision of the District Court in Bolesławiec.