E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.2 page 17 76. In this respect, the authorities informed the Special Rapporteur that their basic policy was not to become involved in proceedings concerning the use and restitution of places of worship that are the subject of a dispute between the two religious communities. They insisted that the various problems could only be resolved through dialogue between the two parties concerned. 77. This attitude appears all the more justified given that, following the prohibition of the Greek Catholic Church in 1948, many members of this religious community joined the Orthodox Church, a move that was facilitated by the similarities in the services of the two churches and, especially, by the fact that these individuals could continue to practice their faith in the same places of worship (once Greek Catholic, now Orthodox) to which they used to go. A number of them did not subsequently consider returning to the Greek Catholic Church. This is why the number of Greek Catholics is today significantly lower in many places than it was before 1948. 78. Many Orthodox believers claim, then, that the situation after the revolution was no longer the same and that full restitution would therefore be an injustice similar to the one committed under the communist regime. 79. The problem is even more complicated in places where there is only one church - which once belonged to the Greek Catholic community - and where members of this community would be a very small minority in comparison with the Orthodox community. In such cases, returning the church to the Greek Catholics would, according to the authorities, leave the far larger Orthodox population with no place of worship. The authorities told the Special Rapporteur that they had made several proposals to fund the construction of wooden churches for communities with no place of worship, but without much success. 80. Whatever the case may be, it appears that the joint commission has only been meeting since 1998, and, even then, rarely more than once a year. According to several sources, the authorities have taken no steps to implement the decree that set up the commission and the Orthodox Church has continually hindered it in its work. Consequently, only half a dozen churches have been returned as a result of the commission’s work. 2. Court cases 81. In the meantime, because of the inefficiency of the joint commission, representatives of the Greek Catholic community have taken a number of cases to the Romanian courts. Although many of these courts have declared that they have no jurisdiction in this type of dispute because Decree-Law No. 126 establishes a special mechanism to resolve such cases, some courts have found in favour of the Greek Catholic Church. 82. Following a wave of such court cases, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church sent a letter to the Minister of Justice on 10 February 2002 denouncing the “illegal” and “unjustified” court decisions to return some religious properties to the Greek Catholic Church and stressing that restitution could only be granted by decision of the joint commission. The Minister of Justice sent a copy of this letter to all the appeal courts, which was seen by many observers as a serious violation of the principle of the independence of the judiciary. 83. On the issue of the return of religious property, Orthodox Church leaders explained to the Special Rapporteur that a fundamental distinction needed to be made between sacred property,