Publication details
Lustration and Lapse of Time: 'Dealing with the Past' in the Czech Republic
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2008 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | European Constitutional law Review |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1574019608004604 |
| Field | Law sciences |
| Keywords | Lustration; Lapse of Time; Czech Constitutional Court |
| Description | One of the most important challenges for the rule of law in the Czech Republic in the period of transition has been the functioning of the so-called Lustration Acts. The Czech Lustration Acts have been widely acknowledged as some of the most far-reaching among the post-communist countries in the CEE region. As a result, they were met with fierce criticism, not only from foreign and Czech scholars but also from dissidents themselves. However, this paper does not intend to reopen the early debate on the legitimacy of the introduction of the Czech Lustration Acts. Instead, it examines the Czech Lustration Acts against the contemporary jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. This paper concludes that while the Czech Lustration Acts might still survive the scrutiny of the European Court of Human Rights, they should be repealed by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic since the special transition-to-democracy circumstances that justified their adoption in the early 1990s have ceased to exist. |