lustrate

Originally, the "lustrations systems" (David 2006: 351) have been uncritically regarded as an appropriate solution for ensuring that members of the former regime do not undermine the development of the new democracies.

Predominantly chosen over criminal procedures or truth commissions, lustration was initially understood as a temporary process of screening public officials for links with the Communist Secret Services, meant essentially to reconcile the need for trust-based institutions and to protect the development of liberal democracy.

Starting in 2004, the interest for the implementation of lustration policies reemerged.

Some histories stay secret, but not entirely silent: dealing with the communist past in Central and Eastern Europe

In her first and very promising book Monika Nalepa presents an entirely new approach to the study of lustration policies in Eastern Europe.

The informers are the skeletons in the closet of the opposition and their existence makes the adoption of lustration particularly harmful to the dissidents themselves, which in turn ensures the credibility of the promise of amnesty.

In order to answer the second question, she uses a statistical model based on survey data to show that demand from the electorate cannot explain the adoption of lustration policies.

Monika Nalepa, Skeletons in the Closet: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe

This article reflects on the ethics of occupation, with particular reference to the ethics of lustration. I take lustration to refer to the purification of state institutions from within or without.

Although no inherent relationship exists between lustration and occupation, the evolution of the latter in the international system points to an emergent relationship.

The relationship between lustration and occupation becomes apparent if one interprets the meaning of Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention in the contemporary context: The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.

The ethics of lustration