Lustration in Ukraine as a Means of Legitimation of a New Political Regime.

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the lustration process in Ukraine in 2014-2018 from the point of view of solving certain instrumental tasks by this process. Examples of successful lustration processes in Poland and the Czech Republic are analyzed. Authors determined the main intentions of the new political forces, that got the power after the Revolution of Dignity in the introduction and formation of the features of the lustration mechanism by the Law of Ukraine “On the purification of power”. The authors tried to show that the lustration processes in Ukraine in he present conditions have the features of the only means of legitimizing the “new political regime”, which creates a certain manifestation and some illusion of the purge of power. It is determined that the process of lustration in Ukraine is defined by the following factors: – the application of measures for the purge of power is carried out from the standpoint of the presumption of guilt, and the for guilt the activities of “criminal authority of Viktor Yanukovych”; – lustration is not carried out on the basis of the principle of individual responsibility; – in Ukraine there is no single independent lustration agency and clear time limits for lustration; – Ukrainian citizens are not interested in the process of lustration, don’t have information about the number of lusters, have no access to information about the results of inspections of public figures, and generally do not realize the relevance of lustration more than 20 years after the proclamation of independence. It is suggested that the Law of Ukraine “On the purification of power” in its current form is a kind of continuation of the false tradition of concluding informal agreements with the elites as a means of preserving the monopoly of public authority and the corresponding rent in visually democratic framework. The authors have analyzed the political-legal conflicts that arise from attempts to apply the Law of Ukraine “On the purification of power” to certain categories of officials, since the nature of the tasks performed by some political institutions or authorities makes it almost impossible to apply to their employees or members of this Law. The authors have attempted to demonstrate the complexity of the application of the Law “On the purification of power” on the example of members of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges of Ukraine.