New Polish vetting law operative
2007-03-15, 15:06
New vetting law comes into force today obliging 700,000 Poles including journalists, lawyers and head teachers to declare whether they collaborated with the communist-era secret police.
The legislation was designed by President Lech Kaczynski and the ruling conservative the Law and Justice Party (PiS) government of his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw.
Its aim was to settle accounts with former communists. As a result, people from various professions including municipal government officials, university professors, legal professionals, journalists and corporate as well as bank chiefs born prior to August 1, 1972 are required to submit statements revealing any co- operation with communist-era secret police and intelligence services.
Those who fail to do so or have courts ruled against them risk being banned from their professions for up to a decade.
According to the critics of the project, the process of verifying hundreds of thousands of declarations is estimated to last until 2023. Declarations are to be submitted to the National Remembrance Institute which was created in 1998.
--- The above was taken from www.poland.pl/news
Is this another way of distracting the public from the main issues? Surley Poland has more important things to spend its money on. Not to mention the principle of rehabilitation. This laws colours everyone with the same brush. Even if you only dealt with the Intelligence services once twenty years ago, you must give details. And then what, you lose your job?
varus,
ReplyDeleteYour link gives this result "Sorry, this page does not exist."
Interesting topic, however, and certainly important enough to pursue further. I don't understand how a government can require a citizen to voluntarily submit a written confession and then turn around and use it against the confessor as an indictment and further punitive action. One would be very foolish indeed to cooperate. Waste of money? Definitely.
Thanks.
Roman,
ReplyDeleteif you don't cooperate, you loose your job. Simple. Therefore there is no escape.
As for the link, well i think the news article has been removed from the server. If you go to www.polonia.pl you will see where i got it from.
sorry the addres was www.poland.pl
ReplyDelete