crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
2. Education
But it is not enough to train active professions; young generations must be educated in a spirit of
respect for democratic values and institutions.
Teaching history is crucial in this regard; young people must be informed and made aware of the
crimes of totalitarian regimes, the suffering of the victims, the dangers of resurgence of totalitarian
ideologies and regimes, but this must be in a spirit of reconciliation and not of vengeance. The work of
European institutions concerning the teaching of history must be encouraged, and projects such as the
Franco-German manual can be an example for this.
Programmes such as ERASMUS, allowing students to get to know other countries and other
cultures can also play a very important role. Finally the role of the media in heightening awareness
is clear, as is that of cross-border cooperation to which European institutions have dedicated so many
efforts.
3. The role of international judicial instruments
The essential instruments guaranteeing and promoting democracy, the constitutional state, and the
rights of man, can not only contribute to ensuring that those who committed crimes in totalitarian regimes
be the object of fair proceedings, but also to compensation for victims respecting the constitutional
state. They can also, through their high moral and legal value, favour – on a national level and on a
European level – a climate of trust and reconciliation.
It is clear that the role of the European Court for the Rights of Man is crucial in this regard; several
arrests – of which some are recent – relate to totalitarian crimes and there is no doubt that the Court will
continue to carry out its task of “guardian of European public order” in this domain, including so-called
‘lustration’ procedures, that do not fall within the subject of this session but must comply, with respect
for the constitutional state, to the very strict criteria that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe attempted to define in its Resolution 1096. It must be recognized that these quite diverse
experiences of ‘lustration’ have not always been conclusive nor contributed to reconciliation. The same
goes for the question, a very delicate one in certain countries, of the return of property to people from
who it had been confiscated, that the experts in Strasbourg (and especially the Venice Commission)
have had to examine several times and that have also led to decisions of the Court.
The Council of Europe and the European Union must pursue their efforts together so that all the
states in our continent become Parties to the treaties, as well as to the monitoring procedures relating to
the rights of man and the constitutional state, minorities, the fight against torture, racism, xenophobia,
etc. In this context one can only regret that the 1974 Strasbourg Convention concerning the nonapplicability
of statutory limitation to crimes against humanity and war crimes was, thirty years later,
ratified by only three states and signed by three others! The fact that Bosnia-Herzegovina has just
signed it seems to me however highly significant and encouraging.
The Commissioner for the Rights of Man at the Council of Europe, through his work and his very
respected reports, also contributes to national and international processes for reconciliation. In the same
way the new Fundamental Rights Agency, that the Union has just created in Vienna could, in synergy
with the Council of Europe, promote better knowledge and a better awareness of questions relating to
these rights. It could, through its ‘NGO platform’ associate civil society to its work by favouring the
awareness of citizens in order to avoid any resurgence of totalitarian ideologies. Allow me – last but
not least – to point out that the subscription of the European Union to the European Convention of the
Rights of Man would be a strong political signal to countries in our continent that are not members of
the Union!
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