The obligation of the Jewish religious community to disclose public information regarding cemetery management. A comment to the judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court of 27 October 2023, III OSK 5508/21
Maciej P. Gapski
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5454-6645
Abstract
The commented judgement refers to the issue of fulfilling the obligations arising from the Polish Act on Access to Public Information by Jewish religious communities in the scope of managing a religious cemetery. The Supreme Administrative Court found that the management of a religious cemetery is a public task regardless of whether there are also municipal cemeteries in a given commune. The judgement indicated that religious cemeteries should be classified as public facilities intended to meet the needs of followers of a given religion in terms of burying bodies. By managing the cemetery and carrying out funeral rites, the religious organisation realises the right of every person to a decent burial. This right was considered a public subjective right, the implementation of which constitutes public tasks. In the judgement, the court referred only to subjective issues – the obligation of the religious community to fulfil the obligation to make information available, but did not decide on the material scope – i.e. what information should be made available.
The analysis of this judgement and reference to other judgements of administrative courts and the position of the doctrine allow us to approve the view presented in the judgement. It is correct to link the obligation to provide public information with the implementation of a public task arising from the public subjective right to a decent burial. The subject matters of access to public information, to which this study refers, were left outside the scope of the court’s considerations.
Keywords:
public information, religious cemetery, Jewish religious community, decent burial, public task, subjective right, access to information, religious organisationReferences
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John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
PhD, Department of Local Government Law and Administrative Science, Faculty of Law, Canon Law and Administration, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5454-6645License
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