Lustration:
Lustration is the removal of public officials and judges who are associated with a tainted political regime. It has been used as a tool of transitional justice in newly independent and postconflict countries. Lustrating begins with vetting—a review of conduct and competency. Individuals associated with the discredited government, and credibly accused of corruption or human rights violations, are dismissed. Officials appointed on the basis of political connections may be removed or reassigned to lower-level positions. Lustration also can be implemented indirectly, as with lowering the mandatory retirement age for judges. [Judiciaries Worldwide]
Noted in “Change will come to Russia — abruptly and unexpectedly,” Vladimir Kara-Murza (currently imprisoned), WaPo:
This was not to be a “witch hunt,” as frightened party officials cried. “After all, the task was not to separate the less guilty from the more guilty and punish the latter, but to cause a process of moral purification of society,” Bukovsky wrote in his book “Judgment in Moscow.” “For this, it was necessary to judge the system with all its crimes.” In 1992, the Russian Constitutional Court conducted its hearings on the fate of the Communist Party, at which a few documents on the crimes of the Soviet regime were presented from the archives of the Central Committee; Bukovsky, who had been invited by the president’s office to act as an expert witness, wanted these hearings to become just the sort of “Russian Nuremberg trial” he envisioned. That same year, Starovoitova introduced in the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation a bill on lustration that proposed a temporary ban (five to 10 years) on government service for all former party officials and all former employees of the KGB.
