The paper is not intended to be a complex determination of the obligations of the Republic of Poland toward cultural heritage and cultural goods being a part of the world heritage of mankind. Its role is to indicate what has been regulated expressis verbis in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The thesis of the paper is that the Constitution stipulates two – different in terms of their scope – catalogues of “goods of culture”. Article 73 encompasses broadly understood goods of Polish, European and world’s culture. Article 6 sec. 1 encompasses “only” goods of the culture which is the source of identity of the Polish nation, its continuation and development. To make the whole complete, it has been indicated what kind of obligations had been imposed on the bodies of public authorities toward each of the identified catalogues of goods of culture and what kind of concept of nation implicates a wider catalogue of obligations of public authorities toward the “goods of national culture”.

Implementation of the equality principle with regard to access to goods of national culture

The purpose of this text is to prove that Art. 6 sec. 1 is a provision indicating a specific area in which the principle of equality expressed in art. 32 and 33 of the Polish Constitution. To prove this, it is explained how equality relates to the range of entities entitled to disseminate and make available to them national cultural goods. It has also been proved that the reference of equality to the dissemination and sharing of national cultural goods requires the application of a compensatory privilege resulting from factual, not only legal, premises. On the occasion of such extensive research, it was also shown that Art. 6 sec. 1 is also a concretization of Art. 5 in fine and that it contains a subjective right.