Protection of cultural property within the framework of the National Register of the Lost Cultural Property

Bibliogr. s. 40-43

The article focuses on the National Register of the Lost Cultural Property (NRLCP) as a new so-called public register in the Polish legal system. Public registers, including records accessible to the public, are organized with the purpose of triggering specified effects within material law. An entry in the NRLCP, according to the amendment of the Polish Civil Code, should eliminate the possibility of acquiring an ownership of an object included in the Register from a non-entitled person. In this way the legislator tries to solve the problem of losing a cultural property by original owners due to thefts, burglaries and misappropriations. Those crimes have usually resulted afterwards in acquiring the ownership by the urchasers remaining in good faith. From now on, such acquisition of the cultural property shall be impossible. The text is divided into three parts. In the first part the author stresses reasons for existence of special solutions in the framework of civil law for the cultural property. Second part is devoted to the rules that compose the way in which the NRLCP should function. The third and the most significant part of the article addresses the issue of material-law effects of the entry in the NRLCP. All reflections are centred around the question whether the new regulation is appropriate and effective in protecting a cultural property.