[Does restriction of sexual freedom according to article 169 of the Penal Code serve the mentally ill?]

Article 169 of the penal code imposes a ban on sexual contacts with a person, who is fully or to a significant degree deprived of the ability to recognize the meaning of his/her actions or to control his/her behaviour. A partner of a mentally retarded or mentally ill person, who engages fully in biologically and culturally appropriate sexual activity, can become criminally liable, receiving up to 10 years of freedom loss. The freedom of the insane and persons with strongly diminished mental ability is supposed to be a protected "good". The Polish Psychiatric Society tabled a motion in favour of abolishing this regulation, but the penal code reform committee did not accept this postulate. It is worth noting that sexual partnership constitutes both for men and women an irreplaceable human right. Nature itself does not exclude the mentally ill from the mystery of life which is unpredictable in its destiny. It should be added that some of the mentally ill identify hope for further living with the hope of keeping an intimate partnership.