For those unfamiliar with the term, “lustration” refers the exclusion from political society of persons loyal to or associated with preceding undesirable, undemocratic regimes.
Lustration laws were enacted in Germany after the Nazi era; they were also passed in many East European states after the fall of communism in 1989. Many of the laws proved both ineffective and unable to withstand sound judicial review. The term “lustration” is derived from the Latin “lustratio,” which means “to cleanse”, from an ancient Roman purification ceremony. This populist panacea reeks of the “cleansing” misadventures of the Balkans, Poland, South Africa, and other nations which shed the chains of autocracy, jumped on the bandwagon of a new political purity, and found themselves in another rut — this time of their own making. Ukraine should take note. uch cleansing cannot be Ukraine’s highest priority. It is, sadly, nothing more than an easy balm and a national diversion amidst a greater national crisis.
What are needed now from leaders in Kyiv are not lustration efforts, but instead true reforms, a commitment to the restoration of confidence in the government, wholesale infrastructure improvements, and genuine accountability among those who seek to govern the Ukrainian nation. What Ukraine requires is not a self-licking purge of perceived political and bureaucratic enemy figures. That can have only superficial and temporal effect. Instead, Ukraine requires a concerted movement against entrenched corruption and mismanagement, as well as a renewed commitment to the defense of Ukrainian sovereignty, the support of its troops, and the preservation of all Ukrainians as one nation, united against a cynical and over-bearing adversary in Moscow who seems to know no bounds.
Ukraine today — more than at any time in its entire history — has the full sympathy and support of the free world in its efforts to secure its borders, to defend its people and its territory, and to make meaningful strides to greater integration into the European Union and to the free world.
At no point in its history has Ukraine been such a renowned candidate for such worldwide support: not during Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s hetmanship; not during the Holodomor; not even after Chornobyl.
After 400 years, Ukraine is now on the center stage of an adoring and hopeful world community.
The world is now united around Ukraine.
What is to be done now is to demonstrate a national commitment to freedom, democracy, and the abolition of corruption. This should be accompanied by a firm commitment to protecting the Ukrainian people and their borders, and to repelling Vladimir Putin’s Russian-backed terrorists with their dark designs on Ukraine’s future. The narcotic salve of lustration laws do not aid in this effort, however. After all, President Petro Poroshenko has, himself, admitted that the law is “imperfect and problematic.”
Instead of wasting efforts on a lustration laws and policies, Ukraine should turn its focus to comprehensive anti-corruption efforts, and to measures which provide a decent wage and adequate supplies to those dedicated soldiers who are offering their lives and fortunes to defend Ukraine’s freedom and independence against a cynical, corrupt Russian dictator, as the KyivPost has recently reported. Let go of the lust for lustration, and fashion instead the nation’s future with care, consideration, and resolve.
“We are committed to punishing and disenfranchising all of those who preceded us” is not a slogan that either Ukrainians nor those who support them now need to hear. It is also not one that plays well in the capitals of Europe, Asia, and North America.
On the contrary: “We are committed to Ukraine’s freedom, its borders, and its independence, with full guaranties of the rights and representation of all of our citizens” fares much better with all of those who can best help Ukraine in the current situation, with diplomacy, arms, and capital. If Ukraine is to benefit from the continued perseverance of those nations who are still sticking their economic and political necks out for it, then continued progress towards sound government, accountability, democracy, tolerance, and an end to corruption are high on the balance sheet.
Persecuting ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s minions is far down on the list of what’s required. There’s not a single one of Ukraine’s allies and potential investors in the current crisis that cares any more about punishing Yanukovich’s bureaucrats than they do about ensuring the rule of law, the absence of corruption, and predictability in the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian society. That’s a fact.
Accordingly, the Ukrainian parliament and the president should adopt measures that will restore the confidence of Ukrainian taxpayers, Ukrainian troops, the European Union, NATO, and foreign investors in the credibility of Kyiv’s governance. Lustration laws don’t work. Indeed they often backfire. They are, by their nature, painfully divisive and they tear apart the fabric of society. Just ask the Poles and the South Africans, who enjoyed them not one bit.
What is required now is an effort to rein in the corruption of politicians and bureaucrats that results in unmaintained, impassable roads and unreliable public services across the great Ukrainian nation.
Ukraine needs to take action which relieves the obstacles to competition for legitimate businesses seeking to build the nation’s economy. It also needs to move swiftly to augment the abysmal compensation for those who are paying out-of-pocket for their own protection and who are laying-down their own lives in the defense of the Ukrainian people — and the Ukrainian vision for freedom. It’s a vision which we all share.
John F. Hall, Jr. is an international lawyer in Washington, D.C.
