uL stration and eV tting in post-communist Albania inter-linked with civic trust in governmental institutions TJ MEASURES, SUCH AS LUSTRATION AND VETTING IN POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES Lustration is an ancient Roman and Greek word lustratio or lustrum that means a rite of purification. Lustration is a process that was among other TJ measures, implemented in WWII in West Germany and Japan, then following the transition in post-communist societies after 1989. “Transitional justice is a concept and a process that encompasses a number of different legal, political and cultural instruments and mechanisms that can strengthen, weaken, enhance or accelerate processes of regime change and consolidation”4. Lustration is often part of the administrative reforms in post conflict and post authoritarian societies. Lustration process, in some countries goes the same with vetting procedures. Jens Meierhenrich define the practice of lustration with three main components “first, the screening of candidates for public office; second, the barring of candidates from public office; and third, the removal of holders from public office”5. Lustration/vetting as a legal instrument has no meaning without lustration law. “Lustration law is a special public employment law that regulates the process of examining whether a person holding certain higher public positions worked or collaborated with the repressive apparatus of the communist regime”6. In post-communist countries, lustration and lustration law have been implemented in the first phase of transition and during transformation into democracy. Some post-communist countries lustrated and other did not. TJ measures such as lustration and vetting have different impact in post-communist societies, depended the way they are implemented. Cynthia M. Horne argues, “lustration positively contributes to the process of democratic consolidation both an act of symbolic politics and a tool of bureaucratic/institutional change”7, and for Mayer-Rieckh the main purpose of vetting was to build fair and effective institutions that would prevent future recurrences of human rights abuse, rather than punishment.8 Instead, Czarnota states that, the aim of lustration and lustration laws “was the security of the state and the elimination of potential political blackmail”9. Roger Duthie concludes two main reason for lustration and vetting measures that are “to punish the perpetrators, and to transform institutions in order both to safeguard the democratic transition and to prevent the recurrence of human rights abuses.”10 Lustration and vetting “procedures aim to shed light on who was responsible to what extent during times of injustice and suppression”11. However, the overall purpose of lustration and vetting procedures differ from country to country, can change by time and the contest of the society when is implemented. Lustration and vetting combined with other transitional justice measures, intent to establish rule of law, to prevent the repetition of the wrongdoings from the past, to increase civic trust in institutions, decommunization and the consolidation of democracy. Lustration and vetting procedures use information from secret files to exclude from public service persons implicated in gross human rights violation giving a contribution on moral cleansing and symbolic element. Lustration 4. Mihr, Anja, ‘Introduction to Transitional Justice’, in Oliviera Simic (ed) Introduction to Transitional Justice, Routledge 2017, pp: 1-27 5. Meierhenrich, Jens “The Ethics of Lustration,” Ethics and International Affairs 20, no. 1 pp. 99–120, Cambridge 2006 6. David, R., ‘Lustration laws in action: The motives and evaluation of lustration policy in the Czech Republic and Poland (1989– 2001)’ Law & Social Inquiry, 28, 2003, pp.387-439 7. Horne, Cynthia M., ‘Late lustration programmes in Romania and Poland: supporting or undermining democratic transitions?’, Democratization, Vol. 16, No. 2, Routledge April 2009, pp.344–376 8. Duthie, Roger ‘Introduction’ in A. Mayer-Riechkh and P. de Greiff (ed.) Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, New York 2007, pp. 16-39: ICTJ and Social Science Research Council 9. Czarnota, Adam ‘The Politics of the Lustration Law in Polan 1989-2006’ in A. Mayer-Riechkh and P. de Greiff (ed.) Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, New York 2007, pp. 222-259: ICTJ and Social Science Research Council 10. Duthie, Roger ‘Introduction’ in A. Mayer-Riechkh and P. de Greiff (ed.) Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, New York 2007, pp. 16-39: ICTJ and Social Science Research Council 11. Mihr, op.cit., p. 3 123