Lustration
Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a
The principle of non-retroactivity means that a past role of a confidential collaborator (informant) is alone as such inadmissible from the beginning for criminal prosecution or conviction, thus, lustration allows at least to bring such past collaborators to moral responsibility by making the public opinion aware of the established outcomes through their free dissemination. Another motivation was the fear that undisclosed past confidential collaboration could be used to blackmail public officials by foreign intelligence services of other former Warsaw Pact allies, in particular Russia.
Depending on jurisdiction, either every positive result or only the one obtained regarding a person who falsely declared otherwise, may trigger consequences varying greatly among jurisdictions, ranging from mere infamy to purging the person from office and a 10-year exclusion from holding public offices.[1] Various forms of lustration were employed in post-communist Europe.[2]
Etymology
Lustration in general is the process of making something clear or transparent, usually by means of a
Policies and laws
After the fall of the various European Communist governments with the Revolutions of 1989 between 1989 and 1991, government-sanctioned policies of "mass disqualification of those associated with the abuses under the prior regime" were initiated as part of the wider decommunization campaigns.[4]
Lustration in turn targets former confidential informants of the communist secret police who remain in or apply for political positions or even civil service positions, rather than former communist regular officials. In some countries, however, lustration laws did not lead to indiscriminate exclusion and disqualification, taking into account that people were often blackmailed to become informants or coerced into providing information without realising its true recipient.]
Results
Lustration can serve as a form of punishment by
There are, however, some paradoxal side effects of the process. For example, in spite of the fact that some informants were coerced or blackmailed into collaboration and may thus be also considered victims themselves, or in some cases despite terminating later the collaboration in favor of genuine dissident activity, the public attention and condemnation has focused primarily on them rather than on the communist government officials or secret police officers. Moreover, if the past collaboration is contested in a court, the verdict depends to some extent on testimonies of former communist secret police officers who engaged with the alleged informant, thus making those orchestrating the repressions de facto the ones deciding the case.
Examples
In Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic
Unlike many neighbouring states, the new government in the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic did not adjudicate under court trials, but instead took a non-judicial approach to ensure changes would be implemented.[citation needed]
According to a law passed on 4 October 1991, all employees of the StB, the Communist-era secret police, were blacklisted from designated public offices, including the upper levels of the civil service, the judiciary, procuracy, Security Information Service (BIS), army positions, management of state owned enterprises, the central bank, the railways, senior academic positions and the public electronic media. This law remained in place in the Czech Republic after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, and was extended indefinitely.[citation needed]
The lustration laws in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic were not intended to serve as justice, but to ensure that events such as the
In Poland
The first lustration bill was passed by the Polish
In Ukraine
In
See also
- Berufsverbot
- Indignité nationale
- Ironclad Oath
- Proclamation of Timișoara
- Religion in ancient Rome
- Truth and reconciliation commission
- Vergangenheitsbewältigung
Further reading
- Williams, "A Scorecard for Czech Lustration", Central Europe Review
- Jiřina Šiklová, "Lustration or the Czech Way of Screening", East European Constitutional Review, Vol.5, No.1, Winter 1996, Univ. of Chicago Law School and Central European University
- Rohozinska, "Struggling with the Past - Poland's controversial Lustration trials", Central European Review
- Human Rights Watch[13]
- Roman David, Lustration and Transitional Justice: Personnel Systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
- 1904 (Merriam) Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language says: "a sacrifice, or ceremony, by which cities, fields, armies, or people, defiled by crimes, pestilence, or other cause of uncleanness, were purified"
References
- ^ "In Ukraine's Corridors Of Power, An Effort To Toss Out The Old". NPR. 2014-05-07. Retrieved 2014-05-07.
- ^ a b c Roman David (2003). ""Lustration Laws in Action: The Motives and Evaluation of Lustration Policy in the Czech Republic and Poland (1989-2001)" (PDF). Law & Social Inquiry. 28 (2): 387–439. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-28. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 131.
- ^ a b Eric Brahm, "Lustration", Beyond Intractability.org, June 2004, 8 Sep 2009
- ^ Nalepa, Monika (2010). Skeletons in the Closet: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 99.
- ^ Elster, Jon, ed. (2006). Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy. Cambridge University Press. p. 189.
- ^ a b Roman David, Lustration and Transitional Justice: Personnel Systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp. 183, 209
- ^ Kieran Williams, "Lustration" Archived 2019-04-08 at the Wayback Machine, Central Europe Review
- ^ Mark S. Ellis, Purging the past: The Current State of Lustration Laws in the Former Communist Bloc Archived 2013-11-01 at the Wayback Machine (pdf), Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 59, No. 4, Accountability for International Crimes and Serious Violations of Fundamental Human Rights (Autumn, 1996), pp. 181–96
- ^ (in Polish) Najważniejsze wiadomości – Informacje i materiały pomocnicze dla organów realizujących postanowienia ustawy lustracyjnej Archived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine IPN News. Last accessed on 24 April 2007
- ^ (in Polish) Biuro Lustracyjne IPN w miejsce Rzecznika Interesu Publicznego, Gazeta Wyborcza, 15 March 2007, Last accessed on 24 April 2007
- ^ "Lustration law faces sabotage, legal hurdles". Kyiv Post. 23 October 2014.
- ^ "Hsw". Hrw.org. Retrieved 7 November 2017.