Język Polski
English
The Scope of Regulatory Proceedings under Article 60 of the Act on the Relationship between the State and the Catholic Church in the Republic of Poland Regarding Real Estate Formerly Owned by Legal Entities of the Evangelical Augsburg Church
Abstract
The article presents a doctrinal and functional analysis of Article 60(1)(5) of the Act of 17 May 1989 on the Relationship between the State and the Catholic Church in Republic of Poland, in the context of regulatory proceedings concerning Church real estate, with particular emphasis on the situation of the Evangelical Augsburg Church. It is indicated that the liquidation processes of legal persons of this Church after 1945 led to the takeover of their property by the state without ensuring institutional succession, resulting in the inability to effectively restitute assets after 1989. The author argues that Article 60(1)(5) of the Act also applies to real estate with an unsettled legal status, i.e., properties whose owner was unknown on the date the Act entered into force, provided that the conditions of factual possession and the existence of a sacred building or cemetery are met. The author opposes the prevailing narrow interpretation that limits the application of the discussed provision exclusively to properties belonging to the State Treasury, pointing out its contradiction with the literal wording of the provision as well as its logical and axiological inconsistency. In particular, it is demonstrated that adopting such a position leads to an unacceptable logical circularity and effectively prevents the achievement of the regulation’s purpose, which was to end legal uncertainty.
Keywords:
ownership, nationalization, expropriation, liquidation, church legal entitiesDetails
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.