NCU News
Social sciences
Important function in the Hague
Prof. dr habil. Piotr Hofmański, a law graduate and the NCU Ambassador, has become President of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He is the first representative of Eastern Europe at the head of this body of justice. His term of office will last three years.
Prof. dr habil. Piotr Hofmański was born in Poznań on 6 March 1956. He completed his law studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in 1978. He first worked at the Regional Directorate of the State Railways in Słupsk and from 1979 at his alma mater in the Department of Criminal Procedure. He then moved to the University of Silesia in Katowice, and additionally worked at the Police Academy in Szczytno, then at the University of Białystok and a branch of the University of Warsaw in that city. In Białystok he also served as a judge of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in the Criminal Chamber. He heads the Chair of Criminal Procedure at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Since 2015, he has been a judge of the International Criminal Court in the Appeals Chamber in the Hague.
On 11 March 2021, he was elected President of the International Criminal Court. He is the first Eastern European representative at the head of this justice body. His term of office will last three years. The Court tries individuals accused of committing the most serious crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The ICC has been in operation since 2002.
Prof. dr habil. Piotr Hofmański is very active professionally - he has lectured in Poland and abroad, he has taken part and continues to take part in the work of a number of commissions, editorial boards of professional journals, expert bodies and societies, e.g., he was a member of the expert group of the European Committee on Crime Problems of the Council of Europe, the Criminal Law Codification Committee, the Advisory Committee on European Law at the Ministry of Justice, the Scientific Council of the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences and he chairs the Criminal Law Codification Committee. In 2000 he was awarded with the Silver Cross of Merit.
He has led several international research projects: Use of Evidence Obtained Outside the Proceedings in Criminal Procedure (2013-2015), The European Arrest Warrant and its Implementation in the Member States of the European Union (2004-2006), Governmental Policy and Rule of Law (1994-1996).
On 19 February 2016, he became the Ambassador of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
