Late lustration programmes in Romania and Poland: supporting or undermining democratic transitions? (original) (raw)
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Lustration laws, which discharge the influence of old power structures upon entering democracies, are considered the most controversial measure of transitional justice. This article suggests that initial examinations of lustrations have often overlooked the tremendous challenges faced by new democracies. It identifies the motives behind the approval of two distinctive lustration laws in the Czech Republic and Poland, examines their capacity to meet their objectives, and determines the factors that influence their performance. The comparison of the Czech semi-renibutive model with the Polish semi-reconciliatory model suggests the relative success of the fonner within a few years following its approval. It concludes that a certain lustration model might be significant for democratic consolidation in other transitional countries.
THE MISUSE OF THE LUSTRATION PROCESSES IN THE POST-COMMUNIST TRANSITIONS IN EUROPE
Iustinianus Law Review Special Issue – Conference Proceedings (2019), 2019
The fall of the Berlin Wall opened the gate to democracy for the post-communist countries in Europe. However, the road towards democracy in all post-communist countries in Europe proved to be very difficult. One of the main questions on the road towards democracy in these countries was the question what to do with the problematic communist totalitarian past: to forgive and forget or to punish and remember. Most of the post communist countries in Europe decided to punish and remember their communist past. That is why 14 post-communist countries in Europe decided to implement the process of lustration in order to confront this communist past. Taking that into consideration, we can say that the lustration processes were frequently used in the process of facing the communist past in Europe. However, very often in theory is stressed out that the process of lustration is one the most controversial mechanism of transitional justice. Many authors warn that lustration hides the danger of political discredit and revenge. These types of claims during the post-communist transition have become reality in a several post-communist countries in Europe (Albania, Poland, Macedonia). In these post-communist countries the process of lustration was used as a weapon in the hands of the ruling political elites against their political opponents, a weapon that needed to strengthen the position of the ruling political parties and marginalize their political opponents. At the end, the process of lustration has had very negative impact at the democratic consolidation of these countries instead of a positive one. That is why the subject of this paper will be the way the lustration processes were misused in the post-communist countries in Europe. The main methods that are used are the following: method of analysis, historical, normative and political method. The overall conclusion is that the process of lustration was very often misused by creating lustration laws that covered positions in the private sector too, by creating lustration laws that covered periods after the fall of the communist regimes and by creating lustration laws that violated the basic human rights of lustrated individuals (the right to a fair trial, the right to respect of private and family life etc) Key words: politics, political system, democracy, transition, lustration, post-communist countries.
Explaining lustration in Central Europe: a ‘post-communist politics’ approach
Democratization, 2005
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Witch-Hunt or Moral Rebirth? Romanian Parliamentary Debates on Lustration
Lustration was not legislated in Romania to date, but it was discussed by deputies and senators of all ideological persuasions, especially from 2005 to 2007. Declarations delivered in front of the house, interventions during debates of lustration-related draft bills and contributions to a parliament-sponsored public discussion reveal that for Romanian legislators lustration can bring about moral cleansing and a break with the past, provide retributive justice for victims of communism, facilitate elite replacement, prevent future violence, and help countries enjoy the benefits of European Union accession, although it punishes valuable individuals, runs against European values, is impractical and unconstitutional.
Lustration in Romania: The Story of a Failure
Since 1989, lustration has figured prominently among the methods post-communist Eastern Europe used to deal with its recent past. While to date the literature has recognized that countries like the former Czechoslovakia, Germany, Albania and, more recently, Poland, have screened electoral candidates and / or members of the judiciary, the army and the police forces, in order to remove officials with a tainted past from post-communist politics, Romania has been dismissed as a country which consistently rejected lustration. However, calls for the removal of communist officials and secret political police agents were voiced soon after the Revolution of December 1989, and the measures they called for were more comprehensive both in terms of the social categories subjected to and the time period of the ban. This article is the first in-depth analysis to examine the lustration demands included in the Timisoara Declaration, explain the reasons why they received a cold shoulder from formatio...
The Impact of Lustration on Democratization in Post-Communist Countries
Abstract: Assumptions about the democracy promoting qualities of transitional justice measures abound. However the relatively few cross-national impact assessments thus far have yielded mixed results. This paper takes up this empirical question with respect to the post-communist transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. It explores if, how and when transitional justice measures, specifically vetting policies and truth commissions, have affected democratization. First, this paper demonstrates a robust democracy boost from vetting or lustration policies, however, truth commissions have a slight negative impact on democratization. All transitional justice measures do not uniformly enhance democracy. Second, the magnitude of the effect of vetting on democracy is substantial, with the most extensive and punitive measures having the largest positive impact. Third, the window of opportunity within which vetting can be started with maximal benefits is wider than theorized, starting anywhere between 10-16 years after the transition. Delaying reforms provides optimal benefits. The findings contribute to our understanding of the conditions under which transitional justice measures affect democratization in the context of post-authoritarian state building.
Hidden Continuities?: The Avatars of “Judicial Lustration” in Post-Communist Romania
German Law Journal, 2021
This Article grapples with the instrumentalization of the past in Romania, in the specific context of “judicial lustration” measures. It argues that decommunization and lustration policies, which could not be pursued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of state socialism in 1989, were weaponized much later and used in order to advance other purposes. In 2006, an expedited judicial vetting procedure, in the context of the EU-driven fight against corruption, was repurposed by the center-right as a lustration instrument. In the same year, the dismantling of an intelligence service created after 1991 in the Justice Ministry (SIPA) to monitor ‘vulnerabilities’ in the justice system has set in motion a long series of failed attempts to bring closure to the question regarding the service’s archives, fomenting continuities of suspicion until today. More recently, in 2018, a form of ‘mock-judicial lustration’ has been used by the political left to deflect or at least delegitimize repr...