A tombstone is only permitted with official consent. A row over new regulations

• The City Council in Starachowice has introduced into the regulations of municipal cemeteries the obligation to obtain consent for any work on tombstones.
• The Commissioner for Human Rights, Marcin Wiącek, appealed against this resolution to the Provincial Administrative Court in Kielce.
• According to the Commissioner for Human Rights, the resolution limits the right to a grave – which includes, among other things, the right to set a tombstone, decorate, maintain and visit the grave.

The Starachowice City Council has introduced into the municipal cemeteries regulations the obligation to obtain the consent of the cemetery administration for the construction or reconstruction of a tombstone - including during earthworks, stonemasonry and construction works.

The Commissioner for Human Rights, Marcin Wiącek, appealed against this resolution to the Provincial Administrative Court in Kielce, arguing that it limits the right to a grave – which includes, among other things, the right to set a tombstone, decorate, maintain and visit the grave.

The Commissioner for Human Rights argues that the Act on Municipal Self-Government authorizes the municipality only to regulate the rules for using the cemetery as a place of public utility - not to restrict the right to a grave.

The Ombudsman cites a regulation issued by the Minister of Infrastructure, which states that the only restrictions are the size of the headstone, which must fit within the grave area, and the prohibition of creating a mound. No other administrative consent is required.

Neither the MI Regulation nor any other generally applicable legal act requires obtaining such a permit, nor does it limit the right to erect tombstones in any other way than by limiting their size to the surface of the graves.

- we read in the justification.

Moreover, as the justification states, the right to a grave is a personal right of the deceased's loved ones, regulated by civil law, and a public authority cannot modify it. The right to a grave includes the right to erect a headstone. By limiting this right only to headstones whose installation was preceded by obtaining a building permit, the City Council significantly violated the law.

The Commissioner for Human Rights also pointed out that the resolution of the City Council imposes the obligation to pay fees and provides for the possibility for the cemetery administrator to request the reconstruction of the grave at the expense of the administrator in the absence of prior consent, which goes beyond the competences of the municipality and is contrary to the laws and the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

Marcin Wiącek requests that the contested part of the resolution be declared invalid.