Cyuńczyk Filip, Instrumentalization of Law in the Context of Memory Policies in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989

The term instrumentalization of law seems to be an interesting concept, with the potential to be located somewhere in between the rule of law, which is „lauded by international agencies, pressed upon conflictual, post-conflict and ’transitional‘ societies, and of course talked up by politicians and lawyers, particularly judges, all over the world” and its opposite, the rule by law. In some of their texts, researchers from the common law culture, gravitating towards the concept of liberal constitutionalism – including Martin Krygier or Joseph Raz – seem to perceive the socio-legal, constitutional reality, as a black-and-white world. At first glance, the existence of only two models seems pos-sible in such a system: either the rule of law as a system of protection of individual rights and freedoms, or the rule by law, where several societies exist under the never-ending threat of political power’s arbitrary judgements. Such a division is useful in academic discussion; it creates clear...