Polish judge and lecturer of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Prof. Piotr Hofmański was elected president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Prof. Hofmański graduated in law in 1978 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He was granted a title of doctor of legal sciences in 1981, and a postdoctoral title in legal sciences in the field of criminal proceedings – in 1990. He was nominated as a professor in 1997.

In 1991–2002 he headed the Department of Criminal Law of the University of Białystok, and since 2003 he has been the head of the Department of Criminal Procedure at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

From 1996 he was a judge of the Supreme Court. For many years he was a member of the Criminal Law Codification Commission.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague, operating since 2002, is a permanent court established to judge individuals accused of committing the most serious crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.