34 The Unfinished Business of rT ansitional Justice: Reparation of oF rmer Political Prisoners in Post-Communist Albania Reparation in practice: Ex-political prisoners and TJ processes In the mid 1970 the fall of dictatorships regime occurred in Portugal, Greece and Spain. In Latin America, the 1980s saw transitions to democracy in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. The third of democratization was concluded with the fall of communist regimes in Central and East Europe in 1989 – 90. The theoretical approach to the reparation of political violence in the aftermath of totalitarian regimes is argued to include four spaces: symbolic collective and symbolic individual reparations, as well as material collective and material individual reparations.18 Symbolic collective dimension requires that reparations include a symbolic collective element of recognition, which means publicly highlighting that violations were part of an organized, coherent strategy against designated collective ‘enemies’, and not merely occasional "excesses" on the part of the perpetrators. Symbolic individual acknowledgement, is aimed at recognizing victims as individuals, and highlights the importance of not simply reducing them to an amorphous group of passive, voiceless survivors. Material collective forms of reparations provide resources to victimized groups as a way of obtaining the material basis and security required for them to participate fully in social, political and economic life. Material individual component to reparations focuses on providing individuals with greater autonomy than collective reparations, can take many forms, but normally include familial rehabilitation through access to medical, psychological and legal services, compensation for financially assessable losses, economic redress for harms that are not easily quantifiable, and restitution of lost, stolen or destroyed property. Reparation of ex-political prisoners in Central and East Europe was diverse, some countries adopted comprehensive combined measures including de-communization19 and lustration process, financial compensation, social rehabilitation, restitution of property, access to secret files, retributive justice etc.20 Two of the most pressing demands put forth by communist era victim in Eastern Europe more generally are the legal rehabilitation and financial compensation of former political prisoners.21 The Czech Republic is referenced as one of the most successful cases, including having prosecuted perpetrators of crimes committed in the previous regime, nationalized the property of the Communist Party, implemented a comprehensive reparation and rehabilitation program for former political prisoners, adopted the first lustration law which discharged the collaborators of the previous regimes from positions of influence, offered unlimited access to the archives of the secret police, and accordingly adopted other measures which contributed to the rewriting of the country’s modern history.22 Financial compensation was paid to surviving victims or the heirs of those who were executed or died in detention. Each political prisoner received a little compensation for salary losses, health damages, legal fees, and judicial fines, as well as CZK 2,500 (approximately US $83) for each month of his or her incarceration.23 18. Ernesto Verdeja, ‘Reparations in Democratic Transition’ (2006) Res Pulica 12 19. De-communization is understood as the efforts to clear out the old elite, the old patterns of behavior and network of relationships that might imped the institutionalizing of democracy. De-communization shows that public that a clear break has been made with the past … See further Jennifer Yoder, From East Germans to Germans?: The New Postcommunist Elites (Duke University Press, 1999) 20. See further: Roman David, ‘Twenty Years of Transitional Justice in the Czech Lands’ (2012) 64 EAS 4; Roman David, Susanne Choi Yuk-ping, ‘Victims on Transitional Justice: Lessons from the Reparation of Human Rights Abuses in the Czech Republic’ (2015) HRC 27; Lavinia Stan, Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory (Cambridge University Press 2013); Lavinia Stan, Nadya Nedelsky (eds), Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience (Cambridge University Press 2015) Pablo De Griff (eds), The Handbook on Reparations (Oxford University Press, 2006); Naomi Roht-Arriaza, ‘Reparations Decisions and Dilemma (2004) 27 Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 157; John Elster, Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy (Colombian University Press 2006) 21. Lavinia Stan, Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory (Cambridge University Press 2013) 161 22. Roman David, ‘Twenty Years of Transitional Justice in the Czech Lands’ (2012) 64 EAS 4 23. Roman David, Susanne Choi Yuk-ping, ‘Victims on Transitional Justice: Lessons from the Reparation of Human Rights Abuses in the Czech Republic’ (2015) HRC 27