Transitional Takeaways

Abstract Chapter 6 offers normative takeaways for transitional justice in the Czech Republic. Following 1989, informers were cast as dangers to the nascent liberal democracy. This scapegoating, unjustified in light of what had actually motivated informers, might have provided a sense of comfort to many Czechs. Chapter 6 interrogates this comfort and unpacks its problematic aspects. Additionally, it questions the putative virtues of transparency and explores cruelties that inhere in opening the StB files to the public in a largely unadulterated fashion. This chapter then pivots from the Czech experience to broader prescriptive questions about the place of informers in transitional justice. Encouraging goals of rehabilitation, reconciliation, and reintegration in the case of everyday informers—rather than ostracism and rejection—the chapter proposes a heuristic that could guide transitional justice mechanisms in how they approach informers. This heuristic aims to promote dignity and render transitional justice more transformative.