What was a lustratio

Additionally, under the new law, non-submission of an affidavit had the same consequences as being a lustration liar. In both cases the consequence was the exclusion from public life for 10 years. While the past law had affected about 36, people, the new law was estimated to affect between , and , people. Human Rights organizations, as well as members of the media and the public have questioned whether all of the professions included in the law really pose a significant danger to human rights or democracy in contemporary Poland, especially given the fact that 18 years have passed since the collapse of the totalitarian system.

Many people questioned the motivations behind the new lustration act. This law provoked a heated argument both internationally and among the Polish public. The inclusion of journalists and scholars as categories of people who were subject to lustration led to arguments that the law threatened freedom of speech which forms the fundamental basis of a democracy. Eventually, the law was brought before the Constitutional Tribunal and many provisions were declared to be unconstitutional.

Given the harshness of the law so long after the end of the communist regime, many people also questioned the motivations behind the new lustration act. The goal of lustration should be a coming to terms with the past and the development of stronger potential for a strong democratic society. He argues that the real motivations of lustration were political revenge.

In fact, he argues that the new law on lustration embodies totalitarian, not democratic principles. This is especially true because the law creates the possibility of censoring journalists and independent scholars based solely on their personal political beliefs.

These individuals do not hold a position in which their past political actions impact their present situation, nor do they pose a threat to the Polish public. These also constitute two professions, which it is particularly important not to censor in a democratic society. Some who held aforesaid positions have simply refused to submit affidavits or have publicly condemned the requirement.

Such an individual is, however, at risk of losing his position and his livelihood. Broniwlaw Geremek, a member of the European Parliament, refused to submit an affidavit. When elected to the office, he had already submitted such an affidavit under the previous law, and been cleared. Geremek famously questioned the moral goal behind lustration. This argument then suggested that far from helping to deal with the communist past of the country, the new lustration act served to recall it and reenact some of the most troubling aspects of that regime.

In post-communist states this limitation of human rights was justified because it is necessary to secure the transfer from a non-democratic to a democratic system. One of the reasons that the severity of the law was so sharply criticized, was related to timing. However, in post-communist states this limitation was justified because it is necessary to secure the transfer from a non-democratic to a democratic system.

In other words, the limitation of human rights through lustration is justified only in situations where the establishment of a democratic society is threatened. When the majority of the lustration acts in Central and Eastern Europe were adopted, including the earlier Polish act, it was widely accepted that there was an existing threat, because these states remained in transition, and their future stability was not certain.

We must question, however, whether this is still the case in Poland today? The new lustration act limited human rights more severely than the previous lustration act from Pietrzak argues that this does not make sense.

He argues that lustration should have been done effectively and immediately in , but that the farther we get away from that time, the less we can justify the limitation of human rights through vetting. The most recent lustration act, according to Pietrzak, contributed to the severe limitation of the human rights, which form the foundations of a democratic society, and 18 years after the fact, it is more important to protect those rights than to ensure an effective lustration process.

The issue of sensitive data was also raised in relation to the Lustration Act. Under the act, public access was granted to the files of people who performed public functions within Poland. The law outlined 20 categories of people to whom it should be applied. Despite this public access, there was still a limitation placed on access to sensitive data.

The problem, which arose, was in defining what kind of information could be considered as sensitive data. Persak points out that it is of vital importance for the public to know information regarding the political views and past political party membership of public figures.

This issue came up in front of the Constitutional Tribunal, which ruled that access to certain kinds of personal data could contribute to the groundless discrimination, and thus data such as genetic code, information on addiction, political views, membership in a political party, philosophical views, past convictions and applied administrative sanctions should be regarded as sensitive data. Krzysztof Persak has argued that the Constitutional Tribunal went too far in the interpretation of sensitive data.

He points out that it is of vital importance for the public to know information regarding the political views and past political party membership of public figures. As discussed above, especially given the timing of the law, it is not appropriate to violate such a central right even for the purposes of effective lustration.

The protection of human rights is more important for the long-term development of Polish democracy than the lustration process. The issue of sensitive data is strongly linked to the issue of censorship. Even if the resources were available, it is problematic to have a bureaucrat who is responsible for deciding what information should or should not remain available to the public.

Another problem is the lack of resources in Poland for dealing with the archives. In order for the archives to be completely open, while still protecting sensitive data, each file would need to be read through and have sensitive information removed. After the sacrificial animals had been led round the fields three times, to the accompaniment of merry-making, the suckling pig-sheep-bull sacrifice was then made, together with rhe offering of two kinds of sacrificial cakes, the offering-cake strues and oblation-cake fertum : the strues for Janus and the fertum for Jupiter.

If there were unfavourable signs in the entrails of one or more of the animals, the sacrifice had to be repeated. In this way the fields were purified and protected against evil in the coming year. A lustrum purification of the assembly was performed every five years by one of the censors at the completion of the census as a purification ritual for the Roman citizen army.

At dawn, the censors, secretaries, and magistrates were anointed with myrrh and ointments, and the censors took lots to see which of them would perform the lustratio and hold the assembly. The chief feature of the ceremony, as with any lustrum, was the suovetaurilia, which was led three times in a clockwise direction around the assembled people, and then sacrificed to Mars. The entrails were laid on the altar for divinatory purposes, and the sacrifice was followed by the vow of a further sacrifice at the next lustrum.

Figure 3. This sacrifice was customarily made to the god Mars to purify land as part of a lustratio, as well as at the conclusion of a census. Original in the Louvre, Paris. The performance of a suovetaurilia in honour of Mars is depicted on a fragment of a relief now in the Louvre dating to the early first century AD. Webster Dictionary 0. Freebase 0. Military Dictionary and Gazetteer 0. Alex US English. David US English. Mark US English. Daniel British. Libby British. Mia British.

Karen Australian. Hayley Australian. Natasha Australian. Veena Indian. Priya Indian. Neerja Indian. Zira US English. Oliver British. Wendy British.