Ukrainian model of lustration: Legal specificities and social consequences

Abstract

The purpose of this article is a systematic analysis of the legal specificities and social consequences of the Ukrainian model of lustration. Based on the formal-legal method and the method of legal interpretation, the authors study more than 20 international and national “lustration” acts that regulate various aspects of government cleansing. Relying on the results of the legal analysis, the authors develop their periodisation of the stages of government cleansing of legal regulation in Ukraine. The obtained results allow considering the beginning of lustration in Ukraine not as traditionally defined legal prohibitions on holding public service by certain categories of civil servants; but restoration of parliamentary-presidential republic model in Ukraine, power deconcentration, and decentralisation. Using the method of legal modeling, the authors substantiate the feasibility of providing the entire theoretical approach to lustration in a narrow and broad sense. This actualises the study of lustration as a legal phenomenon not only from the standpoint of personal renewal of power, but as a legislative strengthening of democratic principles of public service. The authors emphasise the need to modernise international regulations establishing lustration standards. Based on the sociological research secondary data analysis, the paper identifies such negative social consequences of lustration in the Ukrainian society as the stigmatisation of “lustrated” civil servants, public service deprofessionalisation, and weakening of social cohesion in Ukraine. This work is of practical value for countries in democratic transit, which have the opportunity to ensure a dialectical balance between respect for human rights and the protection of democracy, relying on the peculiarities of the Ukrainian experience