1/3 Rule of Law in Poland: Memory Politics and Belarusian Minority verfassungsblog.de/rule-of-law-in-poland-memory-politics-and-belarusian-minority/ Uladzislau Belavusau This article belongs to the debate » Memory Laws 21 November 2017 In recent years, the Verfassungsblog has commented extensively on the decline of the rule of law in Hungary and Poland. While most of the contributors have unfolded the dramatic changes regarding judicial independence in these countries, two facets of this decline, in my view, have not received sufficient attention in light of the ongoing constitutional discussion in Europe, namely regarding memory politics and protection of ethnic minorities. With this entry, I would like to initiate the discussion about “mnemonic constitutionalism” on Verfassungsblog, as Poland has recently supplied a paradigmatic example of how memory laws affect national minorities and symptomize the decline of liberal democracy. By virtue of the so-called “ de-communization law” (Law No. 744 of April 2016), local administrations are obliged to identify public objects (e.g. street or building names) that glorify communist past or personalities. One of the recent targets for the local administration has become Branisłaŭ Taraškievič (or Bronisław Taraszkiewicz in Polish transliteration), a prominent Belarusian linguist, after whom a street and a school are named in eastern Poland, a region with a high concentration of the Belarusian minority. Ironically, Taraškievič was tortured by the NKVD in the 1930s and died as a victim of Stalinist repressions. Memory Laws for Memory Wars The obsession of the Fidesz’s Hungary and PiS’s Poland with historical memory has been well documented elsewhere. To give but a few examples, the new constitution of Hungary emphasises the heroic history of the Magyar nation, portraying the country as an innocent victim attacked by two totalitarian regimes. Equally, Poland has made multiple attempts to criminalize defamation of the Polish nation, in a way similar to the crime of denigration of Turkishness in Turkey. We essentially observe two populist nationalistic regimes using law as a sword in memory wars in circumstances where no actual intervention has taken place at their borders in the last twenty-five years. This can be contrasted with Ukraine, for example, that has to – understandably – protect its mnemonic security in light of the Russian military aggression and media propaganda. The case of Poland is particularly fascinating because memory laws have been developed not by the Parliament, but by a special body with quasi-parliamentary functions instead, called the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej). The institution can be characterized as promoting an openly nationalistic narrative of Polish