Legal nature and practice of drawing up local monuments care programs

Abstract

Summary

This article focuses on issues of local monuments care programs. The obligations of local government units resulting from the Act of July 23, 2003 on the protection of monuments and care for monuments include the preparation of monuments care programs, i.e. the development and adoption of regional (voivodship), district (poviat) and municipal programs for the care of monuments. Despite the same general requirements and conditions for drawing up monuments care programs, the programs of local self-government units, i.e. commune and district (poviat) self-government, differ significantly from those of a regional nature, i.e. prepared by the voivodship self-government. For this reason, the article focuses on only one type of these programs, i.e. local programs for the protection of monuments. In the analysis of applicable legal regulations, judicial and administrative rulings were used in this article. In turn, considerations regarding the practice of preparing local programs for the care of monuments were based on a review of currently applicable such programs, published in voivodship official dailies, and on detailed analyzes of more than a hundred such programs in municipalities and districts (poviats) of varying sizes and local development conditions. Local care programs for monuments are undoubtedly documents useful for local communities, because they contain multilateral analyzes of local conditions for the care of monuments, as well as the protection of monuments and the protection of cultural heritage.The ambiguities of the legal regulations regarding local programs for the care of monuments significantly lower the rank of resolutions of commune and poviat councils in this respect. The experience of local government from the many years of practice in drawing up these programs since 2003 does not eliminate existing irregularities. On the contrary, erroneous assumptions about the possibility of influencing the owners of monuments, despite the lack of authorization to take imperative actions against external units in this mode, are not corrected, and there are tendencies to excessive, unlawful extension of the subject scope of these programs.