Lustration

Since the 1990s, scholars have commonly used the term lustration (lustrace) for processes of transitional justice, both in an encompassing and in a more narrow usage of the concept. According to its original meaning as “ritual cleansing or purification,” lustration can comprise all processes of transitional justice that draw a ritual boundary between a new democratic regime and a former terrorist, totalitarian, authoritarian, or other government that collaborated with occupying powers. Legal responses can range from criminal procedures to granting amnesties.

The most common meaning of lustration is a specific type of procedure within the framework of transitional justice that serves the purpose of vetting, disqualifying, and sanctioning former elites, civil servants, members of the secret police, criminal justice professionals, party members, or members of certain professions. Historically, some specific examples are de-Nazification and de-Communization. As part of a specific set of transitional justice procedures, lustration links to criminal proceedings, on one hand, and amnesty proceedings, on the other. Both in broad and narrow usage, the concept of lustration is generally restricted to legal procedures based on the rule of law. Lustration proceedings are part of transitions to a democratic regime; thus, they differ decisively from violent purges or a reign of vengeance that takes place outside the legal realm after a regime change.

One can trace lustration as a legal procedure back to the fourth century BCE in Athens. However, it developed mainly during the second half of the twentieth century, first after World War II and then during the “third wave of democracy” that began in the 1980s. The Allied Forces inaugurated lustration procedures after World War II in Germany and Japan, and in the countries liberated from occupation the new domestic governments mainly targeted collaborators, such as in Norway, France, and the Netherlands. Lustration was an integral part of the transition to democracy in Central and Eastern European countries, South Africa, and some Latin American countries in the 1980s and 1990s.

A specific feature of lustration after the fall of communism was a procedure for dealing with the files of the secret police and their informers and collaborators. The most extensive and intensive procedures were used in reunified Germany. Lustration has been invoked in societies recovering from violent ethnic or religious conflicts and civil wars; procedures mainly target security forces implicated in human rights abuses and, therefore, have been strongly linked to criminal procedures. The strengthening of international law and organizations and the increasing importance of human rights agendas in the international sphere have contributed to the contemporary spread and acceptance of lustration procedures as a means of dealing with the past; establishing a new political, social, and moral order; and facilitating reconciliation.

A broad range of procedures and institutions for lustration emerged since World War II and are presently in use. They have been shaped mainly by the nature of the conflict and situation that they have had to address. Historical evidence shows that several circumstantial factors seem to affect the decision on which, if any, procedures should be established, which sanctions used, and under which circumstances amnesty should be granted. These include the duration of totalitarian rule; the extent of state crime; the duration, intensity, and violence of the conflict; and the type of transition and whether it was peaceful or violent. Other factors concern whether there was a forceful occupation or liberation from occupation, the presence and relative power of victims, numbers of people implicated in lustration procedures, the extent of elite change during the transition of power between old and new elites, and popular voter support and consensus among the electorate about the need for lustration.

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