The municipality of Rezekne plans to introduce stricter rules for burial
Already in 2010, the municipality of Rezekne issued binding regulations on cemetery management. This autumn, the Municipality makes substantial corrections to tighter control and accounting of burials and to eliminate unauthorised burial. Jānis Troška, executive director of the municipality of Rezekne, is responsible for the changes in the graveyard management regulations.
284 cemeteries are located in the municipality of Rezekne. In most of them, the burial is now arbitrary – without co-ordination with the parish administration, dead and reserved parts of the family are buried, for example by delimiting a wide area with trees or cheeses. If it continues, there may be places in many cemeteries over the next few years, but the graves are becoming increasingly difficult because of their private self-sufficiency.
Although the municipality of Rezekne has binding rules on cemetery management, they are largely ignored. The local government has so far not taken preventive measures or punished the population for uncontrolled burial, but further calls on the public to be aware of and adopt local government conditions, as the local government is responsible for the graveyard and their maintenance. It must be understood that the graveyard is not a private property of a citizen, so the local government will try to put in place such arrangements that all parties are satisfied.
Who should be given the attention of the people before the death of their families?
Although the binding rules provide for the order that the grave-digging should be coordinated with the parish administration, only in some parishes it is also happening. The rest of the cemetery act as their own, choosing a grave, not one by one. In the future, it will no longer be possible to dig a grave or bring a dead body to a cemetery before the parish administration has been visited, a submission has been written and while the parish representative has not shown a specific burial site in nature. The graves will be shown by a parish counsellor who will be assigned as an obligation by order. Any action that will be taken without harmonisation will be considered as a breach of the binding rules and the person who has made the burial will be held accountable.
One of the most important innovation is the introduction of registration logs or grave books. When arriving in the parish administration and writing a submission regarding the placement of the tomb, all the information regarding the dead – the person's name, birth, death and disposal date, as well as a specific sector in the graveyard where the person is buried, will be recorded in the grave book. So far, we had only a couple of parish records, but it would be a great benefit for a large part of society, even if relatives would find themselves after many years.
It will be possible to reserve the tomb in the future. How will it be? What are the conditions for the booking of the tomb?
The problem is that, arbitrarily and unorganized, the graves are occupied, as much as they want, as well as the other places may not be. In future, when a grave lease contract is required, we hope that people will wonder if they really need to take so much space.
For those who have family (family) tombs with several free burial sites, a contract will have to be concluded: one of the relatives must go to the parish administration and close the grave lease contract. Not that one arbitrarily takes five grave places, the other looks up, takes an example, and takes seven, though he doesn't really have to do so much.
It is only about the tombs to be reserved for the so-called tomorrow or future burial, and only for the graveyard where the rent of the reserved area will be determined. Dead relatives, whose previously reserved graves are already filled, will not have to go to the parish administration and enter into a grave lease contract.
However, if the lease contract was already entered into and the family of the family (family) was shown by the disposal of another family, it would be necessary to arrive at the parish administration in order to inform about the fact of burial, obtain permission to make a burial and attach it to the grave book. Operators who provide funeral services, including grave excavation, will have to take this into account and make sure that an authorisation from the parish administration is received before the grave is buried. Merchants from the local government will be informed on this innovation separately.
In which cemeteries, from which burial, and how much will the rent of the reserved tomb be?
Two graves for one family members are expected to be free of charge, but a lump sum will be paid for each subsequent booked. As far as the fee is concerned, there is an active discussion with parish administrations, but most likely the graveyard of Rezekne municipality will be divided into two groups – one group in the graveyard where intensive burial is carried out and the lump sum will be determined, the second-other graveyard where the rent will not be paid.
I would like to emphasise that the introduction of the lump sum of the grave is in no way linked to the increase in budget revenue, but only in order to discipline the relatives of the depetrators and arrange the conduct of the funeral, as the process has gone out of frames over the past couple of decades, and in many cemeteries they do what they want. In addition, in many other municipalities, including neighbouring Rēzekne city, such practices have been introduced long ago.
It is not secret that an intensive burial of dead dead who have not been born or raised and have never been declared in the territory of a particular parish is taking place in the parish graveyard of the suburban parish, simply relatives choose to burn them, so it is also discussed whether the binding regulations should provide for the right to be buried in the deceased whose last place of residence has been in the territory of a particular parish, as well as the already buried First-degree relatives, irrespective of the place of life declared.
The binding rules will indicate how large the area is required for one grain, then a square metre fee will be determined and a single rent of one booked grave is calculated. For example, if one tomb requires 5.25 square meters, where one square metre pricing is, for example, 5 EURO, you can calculate how much it will be. I would recall that such a fee is already collected in three parish administrations on the basis of the binding rules already mentioned and the relevant decisions of the council.
When will the amendments to the binding rules be adopted?
A further discussion will be held at the end of September with representatives of parish administrations to agree on rental fees and other regulations. Amendments to the binding regulations are planned to be adopted in October and sent to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development for opinion. The amendments to the binding rules will take effect after receipt and publication of a positive opinion, which may be November, December of that year. We are aware that at the beginning of the population this will result in frustration, but the order must be because the local government, as a cemetery manager, is responsible for maintaining and organizing it.