Lustration - what is it? Law on lustration. Lustration in Ukraine

The change of government regimes is often accompanied by revelations and related judicial and accusatory processes. The term "lustration" does not surprise anyone. Even the most unenlightened know the word. But what does lustration mean? It remains incomprehensible to almost everyone.

History of the lustration procedure

So, in ancient Rome and ancient Greece there was a rite of purification. The tradition concerned the purification of infants by offering sacrifices to the gods. In modern conditions, asking the question: "Lustration - what is this?", We can talk about the processes of cleansing all levels of government from a certain type of officials.

More often lustration concerns all high-ranking officials of the state, as well as all representatives of the system of law and order and security of the country. Ministers, representatives of the executive and legislative branches, security officials, judges and police officers are the incomplete list of civil servants with regard to which the concept of "lustration" is used.

What is lustration used for?

Initiators of the process are always new, coming in the course of some revolution (or coup d'etat) of power. They are eager to demonstrate their innocence to everything that happened in the country before them. Often, the people of the country are transferring all the "merits" of previous rulers to new ones. And this does not increase people's loyalty to the new government at all, but, rather, aggravates the already complex transitional processes.

Therefore, the new government adopts the law on lustration, which stipulates the conditions under which officials can hold their posts. All those who are somehow involved in the violation of human rights, the oppression of the people, the falsification of political and historical facts, etc., are not allowed to the authorities created by the new regime.

Lustration is the revenge of its predecessors

Lustration - what is it? Revenge of the predecessors. This is how some European and American political scientists and historians evaluate this process. After all, it is not always possible to convincingly prove the fault of an official in offenses concerning freedoms and human rights. Often a fairly timely "signal" to the commission, which deals with this issue, and the official faces a lot of problems.

With the flow of denunciations faced by Poles and Czechs, whose lustration of officials was held after the overthrow of the Communist Party. The number of applications from citizens with names of allegedly implicated human rights violations in these countries has reached such a level that only at the first stage - upon receiving the signal - they have already been sorted into three categories. The first came officials, whose guilt was proven and did not require verification; The second - those whose sins have not been proven, but they have hidden the fact of their cooperation with security agencies. And in the third group were people whose delinquencies were almost impossible to deduce because of the limitations of their functional duties. Most often no cases were brought against these small officials, but this category was the largest.

The fundamental principles of lustration

As already mentioned, lustration is the definition of the names of officials of different levels who are prohibited from working in government. The most widespread process was in the countries of Eastern Europe after the overthrow of the power of the communist regime. Despite the differences in the methods for identifying human rights abusers in different countries, there were still similar principles of lustration.

First, all states condemned the activities of the communist regime, the directive administration of the country and the use of the media for pressure on the people. Secondly, the whole period of the communist regime is defined as criminal. That is, with a small reservation on the development of the situation - this is 1948-1990. Thirdly, in a number of countries, restrictions on the access of former officials to leading posts have affected not only the governing bodies and law and order, but also educational institutions and religious organizations.

All other ideas about what lustration power, had national characteristics. The longest and loudest processes of lustration were experienced by the Czech Republic and Poland.

Lustration in the Czech Republic

The split of Czechoslovakia into two states and the overthrow of the communist regime led to the fact that the Czech Republic carried out a rather tough and deep purge among the officials. So, lustration - what was it in practice?

Since 1991, the Federal Council of the Czech Republic has adopted a number of laws on decommunization. In particular, one of them, "On the illegitimacy of the communist regime," ruled that the responsibility for everything that happened in the post-war period in Czechoslovakia lies with the Communist Party and its leadership. They were accused not only of the economic management of the country and the political course towards socialism, but also of an all-encompassing shadowing of each other.

"Softness" of mass lustration in the Czech Republic

As a result of all actions, more than 140,000 people - officials of all ranks, judges, rectors of universities, directors of scientific institutes, etc. - were subjected to verification. As soon as a signal was received to this or that official, he was immediately dismissed from work (if it was a question of work In state structures) and an ad hoc committee initiated verification of this person. According to the established procedure, the check should be conducted no more than two months, but often delayed by six months or more.

If the committee managed to prove the guilt of a person or at least surfaced the facts of his possible cooperation with security agencies, he was deprived of the opportunity to hold senior positions in all state structures for 5 years. It is for such "punishment" that the Czech lustration processes are called soft.

The abuse of lustration processes

Despite the transparency of all the processes, which the new authorities were striving for, by 1996 there were not enough leading posts for everyone. Therefore, already representatives of the new, democratic government began to abuse lustration processes to neutralize political opponents.

Even Vaclav Havel, who was the first president of the Czech Republic , acted just for the decommunization of government and government. In the archives of the State Security there was also a dossier on him, in which, after another interview with a representative of the authorities, Havel was described as "a possible candidate for cooperation."

Already in 1996, anyone who wanted Czech could get acquainted with their files, if they were in the archives. But as a whole series of "scandalous exposures" arose, and the critics of lustration began to point out more and more the inaccuracy of this process, some restrictions were imposed on the disclosure of information on journalists, scholars and university professors.

Lustration in Poland

The Polish Solidarity movement took the baton from the hands of the Communists. Everything looked very peaceful and legal. The new government guaranteed inviolability and security to the members of the Communist Party. However, a radical group of representatives of Solidarity in their quest to gain maximum access to power proposed imposing penalties for cooperation with the communist regime in the form of imprisonment.

These proposals were not accepted, but the flow of denunciations to their colleagues was so great that the process literally overwhelmed the whole country. As a result, the Polish Sejm passed a law on lustration, in which the circle of officials was limited only to ministers, high officials, deputies and judges. At the same time, entering the leadership position, the convicted official had to publicly repent and receive the people's pardon for working for the communist regime. Initially, this was all limited.

Mass revelations of new officials

By 2007, several major scandals were swept across Poland. After the release of archival documents, Vice Prime Minister Janusz Tomaszewski, legendary human rights activist Lech Walesa, Aleksander Kwasniewski (the seventh president of Poland) and many other well-known Polish politicians and public figures got their hands.

In 2006, the Polish Sejm adopted amendments to the lustration law, according to which the circle of persons whose activities during the reign of the Communist Party was to be publicized. Journalists, academics and university professors, school principals and other petty officials also had to file a lustration application upon admission to work or be subject to verification if they had already held office at the time of the adoption of the amendments. Again, the flow of denunciations increased to unprecedented proportions, so the Constitutional Court of Poland had to recognize a number of these amendments in 2007 as illegal.

The last loud scandal, giving an answer to the question "lustration - what is this", broke out in 2007 in the ranks of the Catholic Church. His post as Metropolitan of Warsaw was forced to leave Stanislav Velgus, who concealed his cooperation with Polish state security agencies during the interview in the Vatican in the 70s.

Lustration should affect all areas of human life, but it is necessary to take into account the nuances and conditions in which people were.

Lustration in the post-Soviet space

The former republics of the Soviet Union, which gained independence in 1991, also repeatedly stated that lustration, whose value is largely overrated, is necessary.

In Russia and Ukraine they have repeatedly tried to initiate lustration, but not a single bill was adopted. In Russia, within the framework of the law on the rehabilitation of the totalitarian regime repressed, a norm was introduced, according to which all judges and officials involved in the repression were to be brought to justice. However, this practice was not widely spread, and all subsequent attempts to hold lustration of the authorities were not supported.

In Georgia, during the lustration, communist and fascist symbols were banned. To the significant positions are not allowed the former personnel of the security organs and the functionaries of the Communist Party.

Lustration in the Baltics

Lustration reached the greatest resonance in the Baltic countries. In Estonia, for example, the law provided for the criminal prosecution of persons who participated in mass repressions during the communist regime. Latvia and Lithuania were more loyal to the past of their population, but here too, relevant laws restricted access to power to those who consciously collaborated with the security bodies of the Soviet Union. True, as in Europe, there were those who wanted to take revenge on their personal enemies - the wording "conscious co-operation" is very capacious, and therefore it is worthless to blame the person.

Ukraine and the struggle for the purity of power

"Lustration in Ukraine should be held immediately!" It is with such slogans that the protesters are no longer the first revolution. For the first time, they started talking seriously about lustration after the "orange revolution" of 2004.

Then in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were immediately registered 2 bills on lustration. According to one of them, lustration should be carried out against the persons involved in the administration of the state, with the exception of the president and the functionaries of his administration. In another draft, restrictions were intended for anyone who had, directly or indirectly, cooperated with the state security organs of the USSR.

Readiness of Ukrainian society to forgive

Neither then nor now has any draft law been adopted. According to experts (sociologists, political scientists, etc.), lustration in Ukraine is now impossible, because the society is too eager for revenge and it is unlikely to be fair to all officials without exception.

In the requirements for the "interim government", the Maidan activists in 2014, in particular, stipulated such requirements for candidates: non-participation in government bodies starting in 2010; Practical experience of at least 5 years in managerial positions, including in state structures; Non-participation in the 100 richest people in Ukraine , etc.

As of April 9, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has already registered 4 draft laws that presuppose the purging of all levels of the Ukrainian government: such processes as lustration of judges, high-ranking and small civil servants, law enforcement officers, and so on.