POLISH MONUMENTS PROTECTION ACT

POLISH MONUMNET PROTECTION ACT

The main legal act regulating the issues of protection and care of historical monuments in Poland of 23 July 2003 (replaced the 1962 Act on the Protection of Cultural Assets).

The Act defines the subject, scope and forms of protection and care for historical monuments, the principles of creating a national programme for the protection and care of monuments and financing conservation, restoration and construction works at historical monuments, as well as the organisation of the bodies tasked with the protection of monuments. According to the Act, the object of protection and care is a historical monument understood as a real property or movable object, their parts or groups, being a work of humans or related to their activity and constituting a testimony of a bygone era or an event, the preservation of which is in the public interest due to its historical, artistic or scientific value. This means that historical monuments encompass: immovable monuments (which include cultural landscapes, urban layouts, rural and building complexes, works of architecture and construction, works of defensive construction, objects of technology, cemeteries, parks, gardens, places commemorating historical events or the activities of prominent figures or institutions), movable monuments (which include works of fine arts, artistic crafts and applied arts, collections, numismatics, historical memorabilia, technical products, library materials, musical instruments, folk art products, handicraft, ethnographic objects, objects commemorating historical events or the activities of prominent figures or institutions) and archaeological monuments (which include in particular the remains of prehistoric and historical settlements, cemeteries, barrows, relics of economic, religious and artistic activities).

Protection may also be granted to names – geographical, historical or traditional names of a building, a square, a street or a settlement unit. The following are considered ad hoc and leading forms of monument protection: entry in the register of historical monuments or in the List of Heritage Treasures, recognition as a monument of history, creation of a cultural park, establishment of protection in the local spatial development plan. Monument care, in turn, is defined as a series of activities consisting in ensuring scientific conditions for research and documentation of the monument; carrying out conservation, restoration and construction works at the monument; securing and maintaining the monument and its surroundings in the best possible condition; using the monument in a manner ensuring its permanent preservation; popularising and disseminating knowledge about the monument and its significance for history and culture.

The Act regulates conservation practices in relation to monuments and issues related to the management of monuments, research, works; defines the organisation of the bodies tasked with the protection of monuments; characterises the national register of lost cultural assets and the national programme for the protection and care of historical monuments and the protection of monuments in the event of armed conflict and crisis situations; specifies the concept of conservation supervision; determines the possibility of exporting monuments abroad; takes up the subject of restitution of monuments exported from Poland illegally; defines the conditions of financing heritage care; defines the concept of “civic guardian of monuments” and includes penal regulations in case of violation of the rights resulting from the Act.

[M. St.]

Literature:

Ustawa z dnia 23 lipca 2003 r. o ochronie zabytków i opiece nad zabytkami (Dz.U. 2014 poz. 1446).

Golat, Rafał. Ustawa o ochronie zabytków i opiece nad zabytkami. Komentarz. Kraków: Kantor Wydawniczy Zakamycze, 2004.

Jagielska-Burduk, Alicja. Zabytek ruchomy. Warszawa: Oficyna Wolters Kulwer, 2011.

Zalasińska, Katarzyna. Ochrona zabytków. Warszawa: LexisNexis, 2010.

Zeidler, Kamil. Prawo ochrony dziedzictwa kultury. Warszawa: Oficyna Wolters Kulwer Business, 2007.

Zeidler, Kamil, Trzciński, Maciej. Wykład prawa dla archeologów. Warszawa: Oficyna Wolters Kulwer, 2009.