Wolność religii a moralność. Wyrok Trybunału Konstytucyjnego o uboju rytualnym w świetle ekonomicznej analizy prawa
Freedom of Religion and Morality. The Ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal on Ritual Slaughter in the Light of the Economic Analysis of the Law

Author(s): Michał Kotalczyk
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Theology and Religion
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The Constitutional Tribunal, with its ruling dating December 10, 2014, ruled that the prohibition of ritual slaughter (which constitutes in killing a conscious animal through exsanguination) infringes on the constitutional freedom of religion. A few of the justices presented differing opinions, arguing that the prohibition is unconstitutional only with regard to the followers of Judaism and Islam. The author presents an economic analysis of the law, which is an academic discipline that studies the law with the help of the instruments of economy. On the basis of this investigation, the author analyzes the ruling by indicating the interested parties and their preferences, delineating alternative variants for the ruling and the consequences of each of the decisions for the addressees (Jews, Muslims, connoisseurs, importers and exporters, as well as animal rights activists). The analysis leads to the conclusion that that Constitutional Tribunal wrongly weighed freedom of religion against morality, since it should have only rule on the constitutionality of ritual slaughter only for the purposes of Polish Jews and Muslims.

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