Tokens: 27
.
We
consider
that
questions
relating
to
access
to
and
publication
of
information
concerning
the
functioning
of
the
security
services
of
former
regimes
involve
a
delicate
balancing
exercise
between
different
values
of
a
moral
,
legal
and
political
nature
.
Society
’s
general
interest
in
the
establishment
of
the
historical
truth
can
not
be
underestimated
in
this
connection
.
Furthermore
,
organisations
that
served
as
the
main
tools
of
oppressive
regimes
also
employed
,
besides
the
masterminds
of
the
oppression
,
persons
who
supported
the
regime
in
a
seemingly
neutral
manner
,
but
without
whom
the
organisations
could
not
have
functioned
.
Save
for
the
cases
of
mandatory
service
or
forced
collaboration
,
these
persons
,
by
becoming
employed
by
the
secret
services
,
made
a
choice
in
their
lives
,
a
choice
that
was
different
from
that
of
the
majority
of
members
of
society
.
We
refer
again
in
this
connection
to
the
Court
’s
recent
decision
concerning
former
staff
of
communist
secret
services
,
in
which
it
stressed
that
the
applicants
had
been
functionaries
of
the
State
security
authorities
whose
raison
d’être
had
been
to
infringe
the
most
fundamental
values
on
which
the
Convention
was
based
(
see
Cichopek
and
Others
,
cited
above
,
§
142
in
fine
)
;
that
case
also
involved
applicants
who
had
served
as
typists
and
clerks
(
ibid
.
,
§
44
)
.
It
takes
more
than
one
dictator
,
a
couple
of
generals
and
a
bunch
of
executioners
to
run
an
oppressive
regime
.
Such
regimes
rely
on
the
collaboration
and
approval
of
a
much
larger
number
of
individuals
who
themselves
may
have
never
committed
any
crimes
but
without
whose
support
the
whole
system
could
not
survive
.
It
goes
without
saying
that
these
people
can
not
and
should
not
be
retroactively
convicted
.
However
,
moral
disapproval
of
their
collaboration
is
a
different
matter
.
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