No lustration of communists in Croatia after all
It seems that the story about the law on lustration is finished, at least for now. HDZ president and First Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Karamarko said that HDZ is not working on legislation which would implement lustration. HDZ yesterday further commented that they did not know whether anyone else was preparing such a law because, if they wanted the law, they would have written it themselves. The idea of lustration was first mentioned by Karamarko himself when even before the start of the election campaign he spoke about the need for lustration and change in the climate in society, reports Večernji List on February 25, 2016.
After the election, the most vocal proponent of lustration became Ivan Tepeš, president of HSP AS and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, who said in an interview that they were working on such a law. He added that he opposed a witch hunt and proceedings against individuals, but that he wanted to condemn all crimes committed in the name of the communist regime. The story gained additional importance because it was reported that a draft law on lustration was being prepared by Croatian Way of the Cross Association and that Culture Minister Zlatko Hasanbegović discussed the Czech lustration model during a meeting with the Czech ambassador.
The fact is that the law is being drafted by the association led by Bruna Esih, an assistant at the Ivo Pilar Institute and envoy of the Croatian President at several ceremonies honouring victims of the war and post-war period. She firmly denies that her association is drafting the law on behalf of HDZ, adding that no one had commissioned them to write such a law. Representatives of the Croatian Way of the Cross Association do not know when the draft law will be ready. It has been reported that it will not include any legal sanctions for individuals, but would only confront the past.
However, after Karamarko’s recent statements, Tepeš has also retreated a bit and now says that he did not talk about drafting a law, but about the principle that all those who had committed crimes under the communist regime must be brought to justice. “In the Patriotic Coalition, we have never talked about the lustration law”, claims Tepeš. “We are talking about changing the climate in our society and not about the exclusion of people from public life or a witch hunt.”
Darinko Kosor, president of HSLS, is also firmly against the lustration law, but he does advocate for the publication of files of all those who had worked for the communist secret services. Božo Petrov, head of MOST and HDZ’s main coalition partner, repeatedly said he was against lustration since it would only cause new divisions. He believes that it is the process of privatization of formerly state-owned companies which should be subjected to a some kind of lustration process.
