Anti-communist law arrives one generation too late

A Romanian law to ban ex-leaders of the Communist regime from the country’s top public appointments has been adopted by Parliament - over 20 years after the fall of the totalitarian system

June 2010 - From the Print Edition

The so-called Lustration Law will prevent political employment of ex-members of the leadership of the Communist Party (PCR) and the repressive structure of the party apparatus between 1945 and 1989 - a regime which the Romanian state has declared as illegitimate.
Both current President Traian Basescu and former President Ion Iliescu are among those targeted by the new law.
Iliescu attacked the law as anachronistic, antidemocratic and unconstitutional.
The first ruler of post-Communist Romania argued that the “principle of collective blame is antidemocratic” in a comment on his blog.
“Lustrating a category of people without ascertaining individual blame is an action characteristic of a totalitarian regime,” Iliescu said.
Romania’s upper house, the Senate, approved the law in 2006 and only last month did the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, adopt the lustration law.
However the law does not force individuals that already hold public offices to give up their current positions.
The law targets individuals who held leading posts associated with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) and ex-members in the State Council and Council of Ministers, Union of Communist Youth - such as Iliescu, PCR propaganda activists and heads of Romanian diplomatic or consulate missions abroad.
The law includes those in the army who held the office of commanding officer - such as President Traian Basescu’s status as a former naval captain, top police chiefs and party secretaries.
Anyone formerly part of these categories is not allowed to run for or be appointed to office for ten years.
One month after the draft becomes law, all those who hold public offices must make a statement declaring whether they were in any of the situations mentioned.
These statements will then have to be verified by the National Council for the Study of Securitate’s Archives (CNSAS).
Any of the ex-nomenclature will no longer be able to become a head of state, senator, deputy, mayor, vice mayor, local and county councillor, member of the Government, presidential counsellor, Constitutional Court judge, member of the administration board of the central bank, other state banks and state-owned companies, president or vice-president of the High Court, general prosecutor and member in the leadership of the National Integrity Agency.
As we went to press, President Basescu had to give its final approval to the law, which was drafted in 2005 by then-Liberal MPs Adrian Cioroianu, Mona Musca, Eugen Nicolaescu and Viorel Oancea.
Parliament has blocked the law in hope that it could sustain its enforcement until all those people in high positions in Communism were retired or dead.
But the decision came after ex-revolutionary Teodor Maries, president of NGO the Association 21 December 1989, ended a hunger strike of more than 70 days, pleading for this law to be adopted.
Analysts argue the law will have few effects, as most of the ex-nomenclature have ended their careers and handed over the baton of influence to their relatives or colleagues.
Members of the governing Democratic Liberal Party (PDL), the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Hungarian minority party (UDMR) voted in favour of the law, while the Social Democrats (PSD) voted against.
PSD MP Mircea Silvestru Lup said that the bill was a diversion strategy from the economic crisis meant to “cover up the Government’s incompetence”.
The PSD further threatened to attack the bill through the Constitutional Court.