The Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw suspended the execution ordinance of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage regarding the merger of the state cultural institutions

Upon the request of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk and its Director, on 16 November 2016 the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw suspended the execution  of the 6 September 2016 ordinance of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage regarding the merger of the state cultural institutions of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk and the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939 and the establishment of a new public cultural institution — the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.

In the substantiation, the Court shared the arguments presented by the plaintiffs in the motions for suspension of the contested ordinance’s execution . The court stated that the execution of the Minister’s decision could inflict substantial losses on the institution and also result in legal effects difficult to reverse.

First of all, the Provincial Administrative Court stated that the execution of the Minister’s ordinance would result in the existing Museum of the Second World War’s loss of its legal existence, which is undoubtedly a very harmful consequence and one that is difficult to reverse. Moreover, the Court shared the plaintiff's opinion that the ordinance’s results which would be difficult to reverse and which call for suspension of its execution stem from the content of the Minister’s decision. This concerns the transition of employees to the other workplace as a result of the museums’ merger in the mode regulated by Article 23(1) of the Labour Code.

As the Court also observed, it is important that the Museum is currently installing its core exhibition. This means that the merger of the museum, which immanently calls for stocktaking, would lead to suspension of the works and consequently cause tremendous financial losses connected with the suspension of the works and the stocktaking.