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List of contents
1. Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Transitional Justice
2. The Politics of Transitional Justice in Poland
3. The Prosecution of Past Crimes
4. Reparation through Rehabilitation and Compensation
5. The Restitution of Property
6. Lustration 1989-2005
7. Lustration after the fall of the SLD: The Return of the Right
8. Transitional Justice and the Role of the Constitutional Tribunal
9. The Role of the Institute of National Remembrance: The Politics of History and Memory
10. PiS: The End of Transitional Justice and the New Project of Social Transformation
Index
About the author
Frances Millard is Professor Emerita in the Department of Government and a member of the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex. She specialises in the Politics of East Central Europe with special interests in human rights, social policy, and elections. She is twice winner of the George Blazyca Prize of the British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies – for Elections, Parties, and Representation in Post-Communist Europe (2004) and Democratic Elections in Poland, 1991-2007 (2010). Her other books include Polish Politics and Society (1999) and Embodying Democracy: Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe (2002), with Sarah Birch, Marina Popescu and Kieran Williams.
Summary
In this study of the mechanisms of transitional justice in Poland, Frances Millard asks: How does society come to terms with its past? How should it punish the perpetrators of oppression and acknowledge its victims? In the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe the task of answering these questions came down to the need to eliminate the communist parties' hold over the state, the economy and society in order to move towards democracy. Millard argues that the key step in achieving this was uncovering the truth about the previous regime's past, prosecuting the perpetrators of past crimes and providing compensation and restitution for its victims.
Through the specific case of Poland, Millard provides a comprehensive assessment of the mechanisms and institutions used to achieve this, such as lustration, law enforcement through a Constitutional Tribunal and institutions dedicated to dealing with the past such as the Institute of National Remembrance. Crucially, these processes have assumed new significance in recent years after the Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015, using transitional justice as a tool of political control which has enabled the restructuring of Polish democracy.
Foreword
A comprehensive study of the policies, mechanisms and institutions of transitional justice in Poland.
Additional text
This is an extremely detailed and wide-ranging account of attempts to achieve transitional justice since the collapse of the Polish communist regime in 1989. It is a meticulously-researched piece of history writing, which explains the chequered progress of transitional justice with reference to developing political circumstances and without recourse to simplistic, one-sided explanations. Millard provides a thorough analysis of the legislation regarding each separate strand of transitional justice.
