In this article the approaches to past gross human rights violations are analysed as moral foundations of post-dictatorial or post-totalitarian constitutionalism. The theoretical perspective adopted stresses the discursive elaboration of the past as a means of legitimization for the new political system, and as justification of institutionalized approaches towards the perpetrators and instigators. In light of this, the author investigates the political and cultural discourses, trying to answer the question concerning the great differences among institutional reactions towards past human rights violations in Eastern and Central Europe.
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