Gwarancje wolności sumienia i wyznania (kilka uwag na marginesie ustawy z 17 maja 1989 roku)

Abstract

The Act o f 17th May 1989 concerning guaranty of freedom of conscience and religion is particularly important for the realization of the rights of individuals. It has settled a system of quaranty of freedom of conscience and religion, and has determined the principles nad limits of state intervention in the realization of individual’s freedom of conscience and religion. The preamble to the Act concerning guaranties, where the legislator refers to constitutional norms and regulations of international law, may mean that the Act was intended to be a collection of regulations of universal importance. The provisions of Chapter 1 include a system of institutional legal guaranties allowing every individual to confess any religion or none. To secure the individual a freedom in matters of religion, the freedom of conscience must be extended by the freedom to demonstrate the individual’s relation to religion, and a freedom of behaviour according to his beliefs. Therefore in the subsequent Chapters freedom of conscience and religion has been presented from the point of view of religious unions. In this aspect it means to grant the citizen full rights of free exercise of religious practice within the legal order of the country, and to provide him by the state with all corporative rights. The existing legal solutions, however, call for some critical remarks. Objections should be raised to the too general regulation of the problems of freedom of conscience and religion in the Constitution of 1952. Also the method of positive determination of the limits of freedom of conscience and religion, adopted by the Act concerning guaranty, is controversial. In the author’s opinion at least an attempt should be made to determine what is not covered by the term „freedom of conscience and religion” . Besides, the part of the Act referring to relations between the churches (religious unions) and the Religious Denominations Office became outdated and must be amended possibly soon.