Annulment in the Polish and US legal system – comparison attempt

Abstract

The purpose of this article is an attempt to compare the extraordinary remedy- annulment, which was provided by the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure, with the provisions in the law of the United States. In the first part the study focuses on the presentation of historical issues related to the genesis of criminal law and criminal procedure of the United States. Then the American legal system was characterised, as well as the approximate specification of this system. Successively the appellate proceedings in the American process where brought into consideration, which unlike the Polish proceedings, does not constitute a separate and uniform procedure. In the second part the article focuses on the presentation of the regulations contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure. The discussion relates to the formal requirements for filing the annulment and the grounds and procedure for annulment proceedings in the the Supreme Court. The most problematic issues were exemplified with the doctrine and jurisprudence. In the summary the article addresses the statement that due to the significant differences between legal systems of Poland and United States of America, the comparison of the institution of annulment on the basis of analogy is currently impossible.