On the Benefits to Polish Law of a Comparative Analysis of Identification Parades

Abstract

The author presents a comparative analysis of the status of the identification parade, an act belonging both to criminalistics and the law, vis-à-vis some deliberations on the interdependence of criminalistics and law. The identity parade is at the core of criminalistics as one of the forms of the individualisation of people and things on the basis of memory traces; on the other hand, it is (sometimes) regulated precisely in the Codes of Criminal Procedure as a procedural act. Therefore, the comparative analysis is fully justifiable. The identification parades in six different countries, representing the main legal systems (civil law v. common law) are analysed, namely in Poland, Russia, Portugal, the United States, New Zealand, and England and Wales. The benefits of the internalisation of some foreign achievements to the indigenous law are also explicated.