Parliamentary Forum for Democracy News June, 2013 | Page 18

PAGE 18
PARLIAMENTARY FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY NEWS
even in this case it should not become a political weapon. March 4, 1999 Constitutional Court concluded that frequently announced political, historical, and juridical assessment of occupation and its outcomes in Lithuania „ s legislation is only the acknowledgment of historical facts, but not the basis for criminal liability. Those who had worked for or serviced repressive or political institutions, which carried out or organised teror, were deprived of state pensions. The state seperated thousands of victims from those several hundreds of people who volunteered in these repressive and political institutions which carried out terror and persecution. Over 300 cases for people who committed crimes against humanity during comunistic regime period were pended to impart justice. Only due to the fact that the majority of witnesses were eliminated or after many decades passed had not survived to that day, after archive documents were removed from Lithuania, many of these cases were not closed. On the other hand, it was impossible to investigate thoroughly these crimes due to postponing of developing of legal framework for investigation war crimes and crimes against humanity. It may be stated that the faults of Lithuanian legal system continually influenced sluggish investigation of war crimes, which formed negative social opinion about the investigation of these crimes, as well as the negative social opinion about the investigators of these crimes, the legal system itself. Due to the above mentioned reasons, the society cannot impart justice, but it may and has the opportunity to impart its moral duty and its other rights- to consider victims of terror, genocide, political persecution seperately from people who persecuted them and the latter should not be paid additional state pensions from taxpayers „ pocket. The continuity of state policy is essential for the realisation of these rights. Morale and history ignorance, eliminating some pages from country „ s history, cannot restore justice. If the state wants to implement its duty, ensure national security, apropriate education of the young generation, it cannot underestimate social moral positions and ignore still alive pages of not long ago history. It is obvious that the „ ex „ wish to sink into oblivion. In other words, they do not want any acknowledgement. It is hard to believe that there are any who would like to reveal their past deeds. The victims of the regime is a totally different case. They usually want three things: speaking about what happened, disclosure of secret regime archives, and justice( i. e. condemnation – moral and / or legal). It is more difficult to assess social and state concerns. There are not only quite a few of them, but also they are contradictory. The main conserns are security, justice, and social peace. Speaking about social concerns, a very important concern is to know. To know the truth. Thus the main question is which way leads to the quicker restoration of this peace. Only general lustration, openess of secret archives, restoration of citizens „ rights and liberties will ensure social peace. For example, the