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Paranoids may be persecuted: post-totalitarian retroactive justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Aviezer Tucker
Aviezer Tucker
Affiliation:
Columbia University, (New York).
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Abstract

Retroactive justice against perpetrators in post-totalitarian, as distinct of post-authoritarian, democracies is constrained by the absence of human resources for the rule of law and the weakness of civil society. The limited application of lustration and other sanctions in postcommunist countries is understood in the context of politics of transition, political actors, motivations, constraints and beliefs. With special attention to the Czech Republic, the ineffectiveness of lustration is exemplified by the damage inflicted on post-communist societies by the nomenklatura and the former secret police.

Dans les démocraties posttotaiitaires, à distinguer des postautoritaires, la justice rétroactive est freinee par la faiblesse de la societe civile et l'absence de compétences juridiques. La mise en ccuvre limitée des procedures d'epuration et autres sanctions doit étre comprise dans le contexte global d'une situation politique de transition. L'exemple a Prague de L'inefficacite de la loi d'épuration met en lumiere les ravages infliges aux societes postcommunistes par la nomenklatura et la police secréte.

Die Ausübung einer rückwirkenden Justiz in Demokratien vormals totalitarer Staaten, im Unterschied zu chemals autoritären Staaten, wird durch den Mangel an juristischem Personal und die Schwäche der Zivilbevolkerung gebremst. Die begrenzte Überpriifüng und Anwendung anderer Sanktionen in postkommunistischen Ländern müssen im Kontext der politischen Wende gesehen werden (neue Akteure, Motivationen, Einschränkungen und Werte). Das Beispiel der tschechischen Republik zeigt, daß die Überpriifüngen, aufgrund der durch die Nomenklatura und die chemalige Geheimpolizei zugefiigten Schaden, in postkommunistischen Gesellschaften fehlschlagen.

Type
Lustration
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , May 1999 , pp. 56 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1999

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