Lustration is needed to restore trust in the state and protect against an authoritarian comeback. After many years of repression, it is impossible to simply declare that “everything will now be different” if people who participated in violence, election fraud, political persecution, and who conceal their role in these processes remain in key positions. Such a state will not be perceived as renewed or just.

Therefore, lustration is a way to honestly separate the past from the future: to show society who is ready to work openly and according to new rules, and who is trying to preserve influence through silence, lies, or dependence on old networks. The purpose of lustration is not to punish everyone who worked within the system, but to protect a new democratic Belarus from authoritarian revenge, blackmail, and the return of former repressive practices.

A trial is necessary where there is a crime: torture, unlawful verdicts, falsifications, violence, or corruption. In such cases, there must be a specific defendant, evidence, the right to defense, an independent court, and a ruling on guilt. This concerns accountability for violations of the law already committed.

Lustration addresses a different issue. It does not replace a court and does not declare a person a criminal. It answers a narrower but very important question: can a person be trusted with a key public office in a new, democratic Belarus? Not every participation in a repressive system can be proven as a crime, but that does not mean the state is obliged to entrust such people with courts, security agencies, elections, or access to sensitive information. Thus, courts punish proven guilt, while lustration protects state institutions from old dependencies, habits of lawlessness, hidden influence, and the risk of authoritarian revenge.

The Concept of Lustration for Belarus proposes not a harsh mass purge, but a more cautious and inclusive approach based on self-declaration. This means that individuals who hold or seek to hold key public offices must honestly disclose their role in the previous system: where they worked, whether they participated in repression, election fraud, political persecution, or cooperated with special services. Information provided in such declarations cannot be used as evidence in criminal proceedings. Mere employment in state structures should not automatically bar a person from serving in the new Belarus. The key criterion is honesty and readiness to work according to new democratic rules.

This approach was chosen because Belarus simultaneously needs to cleanse the authorities of dangerous dependencies while avoiding the destruction of state governance during the transition period. If a person honestly submits a declaration, they may continue working. If they refuse to submit it or lie, they are banned from holding protected positions. Declarations should be verified by independent lustration bodies, and decisions must be subject to appeal. Thus, the purpose of the model is not to punish everyone who worked under the old regime, but to remove lies, hidden influence, and the risk of authoritarian revenge from the new system.

The repression following the 2020 elections did not emerge out of nowhere. It became the most visible and massive manifestation of a long-standing problem: in Belarus, state violence remained for decades without legal assessment, accountability, or an honest public reckoning. When the past is neither named nor understood, old methods easily return under new slogans.

If one looks only at the events after 2020, it may seem that the problem lay in individual perpetrators or a single political crisis. But the proposed concept points to a deeper cause: repression was sustained by institutions, the secrecy of security structures, the dependence of courts, the habit of carrying out unlawful orders, and a culture of impunity. Therefore, lustration should help break not only with the most recent repression, but with the very logic of a state that can use politically motivated violence against its own citizens.

A democratic Belarus cannot become stable if it recognizes only recent suffering while ignoring the older roots of the same system. In this sense, lustration is needed so that the state finally ceases to inherit repression and irresponsibility.

The state must honestly acknowledge that violence, denunciations, unlawful decisions, and political persecution were not isolated mistakes, but part of a repressive system. For those who suffered, this means that Belarus will no longer stand on the side of those who violated rights and will no longer demand silence from victims. Public acknowledgment of the unlawful actions of officials, judges, security officers, and other participants in the former system will become an important part of restoring justice.

But acknowledgment alone is not enough. A person who has already suffered repression should not again find themselves before the same judges, investigators, security officers, or officials who participated in persecution and may carry old practices into the new system. That is precisely why lustration is needed: as a guarantee that those who were part of the repressive mechanism and are unwilling to honestly answer for their past should not again obtain power over people.

Mere employment in public service does not make a person a criminal and should not, in itself, close the path to future public service. The new Belarus will need professionals who understand the system, know how to govern, and are ready to serve the law rather than political orders.

However, a young democracy cannot simply ignore the past. It needs a mechanism to distinguish those ready for honest service from those who participated in repression, conceal their role, and may bring old practices into a new system of power. Therefore, participation in unlawful persecution, falsification, violence, denunciations, or the implementation of knowingly unlawful decisions today may become grounds for a temporary ban on holding key public offices tomorrow.

It is important to begin discussing lustration now to agree in advance on the rules of transitional justice, rather than invent them during a political crisis. This will send a clear signal both to society and to people within the system: future changes will proceed according to law, with clear procedures and guarantees, while participation in repression, falsification, and unlawful persecution will not remain without consequences.

The aim is to define the main principles before change occurs: legality, independent review, the right to defense, the temporary nature of restrictions, and public oversight. In that case, lustration will become part of a responsible transition toward a state that can be trusted, and a carefully prepared safeguard for protecting a new, democratic Belarus.