The author presents criminal liability for abuse of power in terms of Art. 231 of the Penal Code of 1997 in the context of standards of good administration. According to the author, the penal code, by protecting the proper functioning of state institutions and local government against abuse by public officials, also protects the individual’s right to good administration. Adopting a different interpretation would mean that standards of good administration would lack proper protection. Thus, the violation of procedural rights of a party to administrative
proceedings should be assessed through the prism of Art. 231 of the Penal Code. The author does
not believe that violation of the indicated rights may not lead to prosecution of a public official
under Art. 231 of the Penal Code. This provision does not eliminate the possibility of attributing
this prohibited act when the rights of a party are violated during the administrative procedure,
because it is not limited to a violation of a substantive law. Since the Penal Code does not specify the source of this “interest” by narrowing it only to substantive law, acting “to the detriment of the public or private interest” referred to in Art. 231 § 1 of the Penal Code includes acting to the detriment of a participant in administrative proceedings. It is possible to prosecute a public official who led to excessive length of a given proceedings since such behavior conflicts with the “public interest” understood as proper administrative proceeding as well as with “private
interest” understood as the right of the individual to obtain a decision without undue delay. Failure to comply with this obligation may result in lengthy proceedings, and is certainly a manifestation of malfunctioning of administration.