undermine the security and stability of the new state.
Therefore, in order to reestablish rule of
law one must break with the tainted past. This involves a cleaning or purging of personnel
involved directly or indirectly with the previous regime.
As a former Justice of the Czech Constitutional Court explained, "lustration also gives
democracy a breathing space, a period of time during which it can lay down roots without the
danger that people in high positions of power will try to undermine it, keeping in mind that these
people are usually more experienced and organized in the arts of governing and using power."
Moreover, the process of vetting must be legalized and regulated in order to remain legitimate.
Although Poland at first did not opt for a formal lustration policy, the ad hoc nature of arbitrary
lustration that ensued highlighted the need for government to step in and formalize a process to
guarantee it supports not undermines the stability of the new regime.
necessary step in the safeguarding of democracy.
Second, bureaucratic change is required in order to create a trustworthy and competent
state apparatus. There are two different yet complementary logics to this argument. First,
officials trained and socialized to further the goals of the previous regime will be ill suited to
further the ideological goals of the new regime, especially if the ideological commitment of the
new and old regimes is diametrically opposed.
For example, skills learned to further a centrally
planned, Communist system are ill suited to further the goals of a market oriented, democratic
system. Therefore bureaucratic competence and commitment to the goals of the democratic
regime would be questionable.
Second, if old bureaucrats were to remain in their positions they
would be able to take advantage of the privileges they carried over from the previous regime. We
43
Solyom, p.130.
44
Vojtech Cepl, "The Transformation of Hearts and Minds in Eastern Europe." The Cato Journal 17, 2 (1997),
p.6.
45
David 2003, p. 398.
46
David Dastych, "No 'Zero Option' but a Shake Up: The Reform of the Polish Secret Services." (2002)
, accessed February 23, 2005.
47
Marta Miklaszewska, "The Myth Factory." Uncaptive Minds Summer (1993): 37-42.
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Convention