JURIST - Paper Chase: Poland court rules controversial decommunization law unconstitutional

[JURIST] Poland's Constitutional Tribunal [official website] Friday struck down portions of the country's so-called Lustration Law [RFE backgrounder; BI backgrounder on "lustration" generally] passed in October 2006 requiring over 700,000 Polish professionals - academics [IPN announcement], journalists, lawyers, diplomats and managers of state-owned companies - to file affidavits swearing they they never co-operated with the country's Communist-era secret police. The high court ruled that the government of Poland [JURIST news archive] can neither require citizens to make such declarations nor publish a list of alleged Soviet collaborators. Poland was governed by a Soviet-installed Communist regime from 1945-1989 [Wikipedia backgrounder].

Polish President Lech Kaczynski [official website] had advocated for the Lustration Law and said "the issue is not closed" Friday after the court's ruling. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski [official profile], the president's twin brother, said Thursday that the judges of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal [profiles] could be charged [JURIST report] if they acted improperly in ruling on the legality of the law. AP has more.

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