Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has accepted to consider an application by the Union of Jewish Communities, the official umbrella body of Polish Jewry, over the recent ban on kosher slaughter. Representatives of the Jewish community were informed on Tuesday that the country's supreme court will consider the appeal.
“It’s a promising sign on the eve of Hanukkah,” Piotr Kadlcik, president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, told the news agency JTA. “We believe that this issue can be resolved by legal mechanisms functioning in Poland."
The application of the Union of Jewish Communities was submitted to the tribunal in August. The appeal will be considered by the full court but a date for the session has not yet been set.
In July, the Sejm, Poland's legislature, rejected a draft amendment to the law on the protection of animals that would have allowed kosher slaughter to be performed in accordance with the needs of the local Jewish community.
Last November, the Constitutional Court declared a government regulation exempting Jews and Muslims from a law requiring the stunning of animals prior to slaughter void on technical grounds. Muslim and Jewish slaughter requires that animals be conscious before their necks are cut.
