Abstract

The article deals with certain criminal law aspects of the digitisation process of the public procurement system. The deliberations focus on whether moving away from the use of “traditional” documents and means of communication in favour of electronic communication and a system of access to and storage of documents in electronic form will result in the emergence of new categories of offences “representative” of criminal attacks on the public procurement system. It also asks whether the focus among the types of offences currently occurring most frequently in criminal law attacks on the public procurement system will shift from offences constituting an attack on the credibility of documents recorded on “traditional“ carriers (e.g. Articles 270, 270a, 271, 271a, 273, 276 of the Penal Code, as well as Article 297 § 2 of the Penal Code) for offences against the protection of information, contained primarily in Chapter XXXIII of the Penal Code. The author submits and supports the thesis that the digitisation of the public procurement system will make it more difficult to raise reservations against the credibility of documents used in public procurement procedures. However, from the point of view of evaluating an action under the Penal Code, it will only change the practical methods of taking legal action, while the legal qualification of the committed action will remain the same. It is possible that a class of actual status types may appear, which, if defined as crimes against the protection of information, will precede crimes directed at the credibility of documents, or will be used to remove any traces of such a crime.