Transition, justice and transitional justice in Poland

Abstract

Observers have argued that the window of opportunity allowing for the adoption of transitional justice methods in Eastern Europe had closed by mid-1990s, both because by then the public had lost interest in the topic and because former communist officials and secret political police officers retained their political clout and it to block an honest reassessment of the recent past. However, it was only toward the end of the decade that Poland adopted lustration, opened secret archives and investigated a number of communist-era atrocities, proving that, if there is political will, justice delayed might not amount to justice denied. This article examines three methods post-communist Poland has employed in order to come to terms with the communist past -lustration, secret file access and court proceedings- and offers four different explanatory factors that, when taken together, can explain the country’s reluctance to pursue the politics of memory more resolutely.