Prawo obywatela polskiego do sądu krajowego w sprawie o przestępstwo
Polish citizen’s right to court in criminal matters

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to determine the scope of the right to a national court that a Polish citizen accused of a crime enjoys. The problem, of course, is when the accused is on Polish territory and another country has made a formal request to surrender him or her for trial. The introduction of the European Arrest Warrant and the related amendment of Article 55 of the Polish Constitution has meant that the traditional prohibition on the surrender of nationals, which was once seen as a guarantee of the defendant’s right to a national trial, no longer applies. This was considered one of the rights associated with citizenship. The conclusion of our considerations is as follows: a Polish citizen who resides in the territory of the Republic of Poland is guaranteed the right to a Polish court if in his/her case, apart from the citizenship link, there is also a territoriality link, i.e., the crime was committed in Polish territory. The assessment of where the crime was committed is based on Articles 5 and 6 of the Criminal Code. When these jurisdictional connectors coincide, surrendering the perpetrator to another state is not legally permissible. The considerations undertaken in this paper are based on a dogmatic analysis of Polish law and the method of legal-historical analysis. They are based on an assessment of the significance of constitutional provisions for the interpretation of national laws and the significance of EU law for the national legal order of European Union member states, including an analysis of legal provisions before and after Poland’s accession to the European Union.

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