Most of Poland's news organisations are today reporting the fact that the Constitutional Tribunal has declared that the enactment of martial law in 1981 was in fact illegal; see for instance TVN24. This is an important step for the healing of modern Poland whilst being also at the same time at tad surreal.
The Communist State that existed within the geographical location known as Poland between the end of the Second World War and 1989 (although not officially vanquished until the short constitution of 1992) was from the very outset an unconstitutional abhorrence placed on top of the existing democratic Poland by external agents (whist it obviously had many Polish supporter it could not have been created without the USSR). Therefore to declare one of its acts as unconstitutional is strange. Whether martial law agreed with or did not agree with the PRL's constitution does not change one iota the unethical nature of the act.
However, as I sad above, perhaps it is a natural and necessary part of the healing process. What perhaps is the more worrying part of this is the implications that spring up from this judgement. By declaring the act unconstitutional the tribunal recognises the overall validity of the PRL and thus opens the way for compensation claims.
The begs the question as to whether the children of the revolution should pay for the inequities of the forefathers. Simply put, should modern Poland's taxes be used to pay for past wrongs under a system to which it had no part?
Arguments for could start with pointing to the fact that there is a continuity of state structures such as tax offices, army, hospitals etc and thus this is really the same state under a different name. Arguments against would point to the undemocratic nature of the previous system and thus how accountability can not be placed upon the public at large.
A tricky problem with no immediately clear ethical answer.
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