Court gives citizens of Hel freedom to build without army interference

The Constitutional Tribunal (TK) yesterday issued a ruling that a law under which citizens of Hel had to obtain the army's permission for any form of construction work, is invalid and has no relevance to current national defense plans. The Polish Army has governed the gmina of Hel, located at the tip of the Hel peninsula in Northern Poland, since 1949, when a special order and later a decree were issued, granting the army powers to govern "areas particularly important for the nation's defense" and called for the setting up of an army base in Hel. Since then, the gmina's inhabitants have needed the army's permission for virtually any type of construction work, ranging from house building to telephone line installation. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A4, C1) M.T.K.