E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.2 page 14 60. Under Act No. 10/2001 on the regime governing certain properties wrongfully confiscated between 6 March 1945 and 22 December 1989, the legal regime governing buildings that had belonged to religious denominations or to communities from national minorities and that had been taken over by the State or by other legal persons was to be regulated by special laws and their transfer or change of use was prohibited until such laws were passed. 61. Subsequently, Emergency Government Ordinance No. 94/2000 was quite substantially amended by Act No. 501/2002. The amendments included: An increase in the number of properties returned to the religious denominations to which they belonged; The possibility of returning properties that had been used for activities of public interest; The possibility of returning certain movables intended for use in religious services, if these had been seized at the same time as the real estate and still physically existed at the time of restitution; The establishment of special commissions on restitution, with fewer members in order to facilitate the process; The introduction of much shorter deadlines for analysing and taking a decision on restitution (60 days from the date of registration of the application for restitution and supporting documents). 62. Under article 2 of Emergency Government Ordinance No. 94/2000, Government Decision No. 967/2000 set up a special commission on restitution consisting of representatives of various ministries; Government Decision No. 1139/2000 set out the regulations on the organization and functioning of this commission; and Government Decision No. 1164/2002 set out the means for implementing Emergency Government Ordinance No. 94/2000, as well as other organizational and operational procedures of the special commission on restitution. 63. When the deadline for submission by the religious communities concerned of applications for restitution expired, on 4 March 2003, a total of 7,568 applications had been submitted, including 770 by the Orthodox Church, 992 by the Roman Catholic Church, 2,207 by the Greek Catholic Church, 899 by the Reformed Church, 1,509 by the Jewish community, 690 by the Evangelical Church and 201 by other denominations. 64. In response to these applications, the commission on restitution began by requesting local authorities to check on the current legal status of the property concerned. In cases where the necessary documentation was complete and the legal status had been checked, decisions were taken from 1 July 2003 onwards. So far, according to the information supplied by the authorities, 70 per cent of the applications have been considered and the return of 60 properties has already been approved. 65. The authorities also told the Special Rapporteur that a large number of properties that had belonged to the Jewish community (synagogues, cemeteries, schools, etc.) and other Romanian minority communities had been returned in accordance with the special regulations (Emergency