Lustration In Poland
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Lustration in Poland is the policy of limiting the participation of former
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
s – especially of informants of the communist
secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...
– during 1944–1990, in successor
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
s or even in civil-service positions. The term ''
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 witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...
'', "cleansing", stems from the Latin word ''
lustratio ''Lustratio'' was an ancient Greek and ancient Roman purification ritual. It included a procession and in some circumstances the sacrifice of a pig (''sus''), a ram (''ovis''), and a bull (''taurus'') (''suovetaurilia''). The name is the source ...
'', for a Roman purification ceremony. The first Polish lustration bill was passed by the Polish
parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
in 1992, but was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland. Subsequently other bills were submitted and reviewed by a special commission, resulting in a new lustration law passed in 1996.


1997–2007

In the years 1997–2007 lustration was dealt with by the office of Public Interest Spokesperson ('' Rzecznik Interesu Publicznego''), who analyzed lustration declarations and could initiate further proceedings, including submitting a request to the courts to initiate a legal lustration proceeding. The declarations may be seen as forms of public confessions, through which offices are exchanged for truth in a similar way as amnesty was exchanged for truth in South Africa. Owing to its resemblance with the South African truth and reconciliation process, the Polish lustration system of the period is seen as the most innovative among all lustration models in Central and Eastern Europe.


2007

On 18 December 2006
Polish law The Polish law or legal system in Poland has been developing since the first centuries of Polish history, over 1,000 years ago. The public and private laws of Poland are codified. The supreme law in Poland is the Constitution of Poland. Po ...
regulating
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...
(pol. Instytut Pamięci Narodowej - IPN) was changed and came into effect on 15 March 2007. This change gave IPN new
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 witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...
powers . The first Polish lustration laws were adopted in 1997;Mark S. Ellis
''Purging the past: The Current State of Lustration Laws in the Former Communist Bloc''
(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
only since 2007 do they officially involve IPN, which has now replaced the old Polish lustration institution, the Public Interest Spokesman.Najważniejsze wiadomości – Informacje i materiały pomocnicze dla organów realizujących postanowienia ustawy lustracyjnej
IPN News. Last accessed on 24 April 2007

Gazeta Wyborcza (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...
, 15 March 2007, Last accessed on 24 April 2007
According to the revised Chapter 5a of the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (''Ustawa z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej — Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu''), the
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 witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...
bureau of the Institute of National Remembrance performs the following functions: # maintains the register of lustration statements; # analyzes lustration statements and collects information necessary for its correct assessment; # prepares lustration procedures; # notifies the respective bodies about non-performance by non-judicial bodies of obligations in accordance with this Law; # prepares and publishes catalogues of documents containing personal data: ::a) produced by this individual (or with their participation) in connection with their activities as a secret informant ::b) from the content of which it follows that the relevant individual was regarded by security services as a secret informer or operational assistant collecting information. Lustration by IPN was to be obligatory for 53 categories of people born before August 1, 1972, and holding positions of significant public responsibility, including lawyers, public notaries, attorneys, journalists and academic workers.Nowelizacja ustawy z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu oraz ustawy z dnia 18 października 2006 r. o ujawnianiu informacji o dokumentach organów bezpieczeństwa państwa z lat 1944–1990 oraz treści tych dokumentów.
Last accessed on 24 April 2006
However, key articles of that law were judged unconstitutional by Poland's Constitutional Court or Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland on May 11, 2007, making the role of IPN unclear and putting the whole process into question.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6648435.stm BBC News Most importantly, the part of the law that would have required about 700,000 people in the above 53 categories to submit declarations on whether they had spied for the secret services has been thrown out. With this key change, the role of IPN in the lustration process is at present highly unclear. Some influential opinionmakers and politicians in Poland are now declaring that, since the whole lustration process in the old format is essentially over, the secret police archives should simply be thrown open. Others oppose such a move, arguing that the release of all of the personal and confidential information contained in the files would cause unacceptable harm to innocent people.Jan Lityński
Otwarcie teczek zalegalizuje przestępstwa PRL (Opening the files will legalise the crimes of the Polish People's Republic).
''
Gazeta Wyborcza (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...
''.


Controversy surrounding counterfeit files and fake police reports

The former head of the State Protection Office (''UOP''), General Gromosław Czempiński, and others have described a process by which
counterfeit A counterfeit is a fake or unauthorized replica of a genuine product, such as money, documents, designer items, or other valuable goods. Counterfeiting generally involves creating an imitation of a genuine item that closely resembles the original ...
top-secret files and faked police reports were produced by the Communist secret service in the
People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
. Their purpose was to undermine the credibility of prominent opponents of the ruling party and many other persons by ruining their good names as private individuals. '' Fałszywka'' ( pl: ''fałszywki'') contained fake revelations about opposition members' working as alleged police informants under the communist system. The communist secret service used them frequently, said Czempiński, adding that often the officers who "signed" them were created out of thin air. Writer Jerzy Urban noted that, if available, signatures of alleged collaborators on unrelated documents were xeroxed and pasted into ''fałszywkas'' before their reprinting. The presence of ''fałszywkas'' in the secret police archives makes the process of lustration extremely sensitive in Poland, leading to a number of highly publicized cases for slander or libel. Many prominent politicians, such as
the Minister ''The Minister'' () is a 2011 French-Belgian political drama film directed by Pierre Schöller. Plot French Transport Minister Bertrand Saint-Jean arrives at the scene of a serious bus crash with many fatalities. He later attends a news inte ...
Władysław Bartoszewski Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of th ...
(a former
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...
concentration camp prisoner), and Professor
Jerzy Kłoczowski Jerzy Kazimierz Kłoczowski (29 December 1924, Bogdany Wielkie, Poland – 2 December 2017) was a Polish historian, professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, and former member of the Polish Senate. During World War II, Kłocz ...
(a member of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
Executive Board), have been among their targets. Kłoczowski was defended against a libelous SB ''fałszywka'' by a 2004 letter published in the newspaper ''
Rzeczpospolita () is a traditional Polish term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "rzeczpospolita", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage" "thing, matter" and "common" is analogous to the Latin ''rēs pūblica' ...
'', signed by many Polish intellectuals, including Professor
Jerzy Buzek Jerzy Karol Buzek (; born 3 July 1940) is a Polish politician and former Member of the European Parliament from Poland. He has served as Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001, since being elected to the European Parliament in 2004, he serv ...
,
Tadeusz Mazowiecki Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946, hav ...
, Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, Professor
Władysław Bartoszewski Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of th ...
, Professor Andrzej Zoll, Józef Życiński,
Andrzej Wajda Andrzej Witold Wajda (; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the "P ...
, Professor Barbara Skarga, Professor
Jan Miodek Jan Franciszek Miodek (born 7 June 1946 in Tarnowskie Góry, Silesian Voivodeship), is a Polish linguist, a prescriptive grammarian and a professor of Wrocław University. He is regarded as one of the most prominent educators and promoters of t ...
, Professor Jerzy Zdrada,
Aleksander Hall Aleksander Jan Hall (born 20 May 1953 in Gdańsk) is a Polish conservative political thinker, scholar and retired politician. He was an activist for the Movement for Defense of Human and Civic Rights, and later a politician and member of Solidari ...
, Władysław Frasyniuk, Professor
Adam Galos Adam Galos (22 July 1924 – 11 April 2013) was a Polish historian and professor at University of Wrocław. He specialized in the history of Germany. He died, aged 88, in Wrocław. He spent his childhood in Warsaw Warsaw, officially the C ...
, and
Krystyna Zachwatowicz Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda (born ''Krystyna Zachwatowicz''; 16 May 1930) is a Polish scenographer, costume designer and actress. She is a daughter of architect and restorer Jan Zachwatowicz and Maria Chodźko ''h.'' Kościesza, and wife of fil ...
. The extensive use of ''fałszywka''s (fake documents) in communist Poland was confirmed during a 2000 court case by a 1985 document written by Major Adam Styliński during an internal investigation at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The document described how ''fałszywka''s were produced and disseminated during
martial law in Poland Martial law in Poland () existed between 13 December 1981 and 22 July 1983. The Polish United Workers' Party, government of the Polish People's Republic drastically restricted everyday life by introducing martial law and a military junta in an a ...
.Wojciech Czuchnowski, Maciej Sandecki (December 22, 2011)
"SB fałszowała kwity na Wałęsę,"
''Gazeta wyborcza''.
Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...
had been a target of fake police reports as early as the early 1970s.Roger Boyes
"Lech Walesa was a Communist spy, says new book,"
''The Times'', 25 June 2008.


See also

* Communist crime *
Thick line The thick line policy (Polish language, Polish: gruba kreska, ''thick stroke'', or gruba linia, ''thick line'') was the term used by prime minister of Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, in the exposé:pl:Exposé, ldelivered in the Sejm, on September 12 ...
(''gruba kreska'') * Instruction UOP nr 0015/92


Notes


Further reading

*Mark S. Ellis,
''Purging the past: The Current State of Lustration Laws in the Former Communist Bloc''
(pdf), Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 59, No. 4, Accountability for International Crimes and Serious Violations of Fundamental Human Rights (Autumn, 1996), pp. 181–196], covering a dozen former Communist countries in 1996
''"Explaining Lustration in Eastern Europe: 'A Post-communist politics approach'"''
Szczerbiak, Aleks, Brigid Fowler and Kieran Williams. SEI Working Paper No 62. *Michał Krotoszyński,
''Polish lustration and the models of transitional justice''
, Adam Mickiewicz University Law Review, Vol. 3, 2014, pp. 199–211. *Lavinia Stan, "''Transition, Justice and Transitional Justice in Poland''," Studia Politica, Vol. 6, No. 2 (July 2006), pp. 257–284. *Lavinia Stan, "''The Politics of Memory in Poland: Lustration, File Access and Court Proceedings''," Studies in Post-Communism Occasional Paper No. 10 (April 2005). *Roman David, "''Lustration and Transitional Justice: Personnel Systems in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland''". Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. {{Poland topics History of Poland (1989–present) Political history of Poland Decommunization Institute of National Remembrance