Suchergebnisse

Zarządzanie zbiorową pamięcią i narracją na temat przeszłości stanowi element polityki historycznej większości państw świata. Polityka ta prowadzona jest za pomocą wielu instrumentów, w tym tych należących do katalogu środków prawnych, ujętych często w postać konstytucjonalizmu pamięci. W przypadku Izraela polityka pamięci ma jednak charakter szczególny. Osadzona jest bowiem wokół zbrodni Holocaustu, stanowiącej nie tylko uniwersalny symbol ostatecznego zła i ludobójstwa, lecz również kamień węgielny powstania izraelskiej państwowości. Odniesienia do Holocaustu stanowią w Izraelu także istotny wyznacznik stosunku państwa – i prawa – do palestyńskiej kolektywnej pamięci historycznej oraz prób jej regulowania. W obliczu nadal trwającego konfliktu i ten jego aspekt wydaje się zatem konieczny do rozważenia. Celem podjęcia naukowej refleksji jest w tym przypadku chęć dokonania analizy sposobów, a w szczególności sposobów prawnych, za pomocą których Izrael zbudował i nadal kształtuje swoją tożsamość oraz najbardziej kontrowersyjnych, również pod względem prawnym, metod tworzenia tej tożsamości. W artykule podjęta została próba przedstawienia roli Holocaustu w izraelskiej polityce i konstytucjonalizmie pamięci, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem tej roli w kontekście trwałego kryzysu w stosunkach palestyńsko-izraelskich, lub szerzej, arabsko-izraelskich. Wnioski przeprowadzonej analizy skłaniają ku stwierdzeniu, że choć motywy, którymi kieruje się Izrael, prowadząc określoną politykę pamięci, pozostają w dużej mierze zrozumiałe i uzasadnione, ich realizacja następuje jednak niekiedy nie tylko z naruszeniem określonych standardów ochrony praw człowieka, lecz także ze szkodą dla i tak kruchego, czy wręcz obecnie przerwanego, procesu pokojowego.

Symbols of the past influence the present, very often dependent on the will of those who currently "weave the story," to use the expression coined by Olga Tokarczuk.1 This applies in particular to national symbols, burdened by historical trauma, whose rank and protection may become handy tools for controlling social and public narratives. In this context, it is the law itself, with its special category of memory laws, that very often turns out to be instrumentally used by the state apparatus to strengthen such narratives. In times of social peace, this kind of state-governed manner of how we remember and perceive symbols remains imperceptible. However, in times of turmoil, symbols can serve as legal weapons against rights and freedoms. Then, the protection of the national anthem or emblem, monuments or graphics may be turned into the de facto protection of the state against its critics. Labelling themselves as the guardians of "historical truth," the authorities tend to secure the orthodox vision of the past. Importantly, this vision very often remains distant from the official findings of historians. It was exactly in such an ideologically and nationalistically burdened social atmosphere in Poland when Jaś Kapela, Polish poet and activist, decided to perform publicly his protest song. He did so by changing the official wording of the Polish national anthem into a pro-refugee appeal and broadcast it on YouTube, which eventually brought him before Polish courts, including the Supreme Court.

The accession of post-communist states into the Council of Europe system enlarged greatly the territory of effective protection of human rights in Europe and at the same time compelled the European Court of Human Rights to address the current effects of past violations of human rights by communist regimes. It gave the Court an opportunity to establish a legal standard of how to deal with matters such as the public presence of communist symbols and insignia, de-registration of neo-Communist parties, and the relevance of past membership in the Communist parties for an exercise of electoral rights in a newly democratized state. This opportunity was at the same time a challenge, and the Court was less than successful in meeting this challenge, despite the fact that it had already established the relevant legal standards when deciding about the cases triggered by the Nazi past. Without making it explicit, and without articulating openly the relevant differences, the Court has not established any equivalence between legal treatments of the aftermath of the two types of criminal regimes in the European recent past. The article discusses three recent cases belonging to these categories and concludes that there is a clear contrast between the Court's treatment of "post-ommunist" cases and the same Court's earlier treatment of equivalent "post-Nazi" cases; the article offers some explanations for the discrepancy which reflects a broader dualism in European collective memory of the past.

Legal governance of memory has played a central role in establishing hegemony of monumental history, and has forged national identities and integration processes in Europe and beyond. In this book, a range of contributors explore both the nature and role of legal engagement into historical memory in selected national law, European and international law. They also reflect on potential conflicts between legal governance, political pluralism, and fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression. In recent years, there have been numerous monumental commemoration practices and judicial trials about correlated events all over the world, and this is a prime opportunity to undertake an important global comparative scrutiny of memory laws. Against the background of mass re-writing of history in different parts of the world, this book revisits a fascinating subject of memory laws from the standpoint of comparative law and transitional justice

The "right to truth" relates to the obligation of the state to provide information about the circumstances surrounding serious violations of human rights. Despite its increasing recognition, the concept raises questions as to its scope and implementation as well as its existence as a free-standing right. Similarly, "memory laws" relate to the way states deal with their past. However, there are certain "memory laws" that, while officially serving as a guarantee for accessing historical truth, lead to its deformation. As a result, an "alternative" truth, based on the will of the legislators, is being imposed. In this article, the authors elaborate on the general nature of the new legal phenomenon of the "right to truth", as a tool of transitional justice, in particular in the context of both providing and abusing historical truth by the legislators, through the instrument of "memory laws".

The article demonstrates how references to Nazi and Soviet past are perceived and evaluated by the European Court of Human Rights. Individual cases concerning Holocaust and Nazism, which the Court has examined so far, are compared here to judgments rendered with regard to Communist regime. The article proves that the Court treats more leniently state interference with freedom of expression when memory about Nazism and Holocaust is protected than when a post–Communist state wants to preserve a critical memory about the regime. The authors of the article agree with the attitude of the Court which offers a wide margin of appreciation to states restrictively treating references to Nazism and Holocaust, including comparisons to the Holocaust, Nazism or fascism used as rhetorical devices. At the same time they postulate that other totalitarian systems should be treated by the Court equally

The field of memory studies has typically focused on everyday memory and commemoration practices through which we construct meaning and identities. The Right to Memory looks beyond these everyday practices, focusing instead on how memory relates to human rights and socio-legal constructs in order to legitimize and protect groups and individuals. With case studies including Polish Holocaust Law, the Indian origins of Amartya Sen's capability theory approach, and the right to memory through digital technologies in Brazilian and British museums, this collected volume seeks to establish the right to memory as a foundational topic in memory studies