Of course this distinction can be found both in English and Polish, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages, still they are only distantly related. In my essay, I shall discuss these structures from a general point of view and I shall also describe the way they appear in these languages. In the first chapter, I shall summarize the approach I take to be the theoretical background of my discussion. In the second chapter of my paper my goal is to narrow down my paper to the thesis I shall elaborate on. In the third chapter we will find out about the above-mentioned active/passive distinction in more detail. The forth section of this paper is devoted to the application of the Government and Binding framework to passive structures. English and Polish particular grammars are compared and contrasted in the fifth chapter, which is followed by a short summary of the perfective/imperfective distinction relevant to Polish passives. Finally, I shall give a thorough description of both English and Polish passive constructions in the light of the analyses above. The last chapter is actually an additional element of my discussion: in it we will find out about a misconception concerning impersonal structures.