Transitional Justice, Democracy and Rule of Law in Postcommunist Europe: The Contested Issue of Rights

In Central and Eastern Europe, both advocates and opponents of particular transitional justice mechanisms have claimed democratic and rule of law principles to advance their causes. Relatively undisputed have been actions privileging the rights of victims, such as political rehabilitation, material and symbolic compensation for past injustice, and memoralization strategies. However, when justice also involved the accountability (and rights) of perpetrators, the debates became heated and compelled politicians and the public to take sides.  For example, when lustration, file access, and property restitution policies were on the agenda, domestic and international courts became involved, at times with different outcomes. This paper explores the potential clash between the rights of victims and those of perpetrators in post-Cold War Europe, taking into account systemic and historical contexts. I claim that practices have resulted from particular national discourses but that international influence mattered, as will be shown with reference to (East) Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania. The findings should be of interest to aspiring democracies that have to decide whether, when, and how to confront to a difficult past.