This paper unpacks the legitimacy gap existing between post-communist policies of citizenship restitu-tion, the experiences of these policies, and the media coverage of these policies. Considering citizenship restitution first as analogous to property restitution, theoretically citizenship restitution appears as com-pensatory, to right the wrongs of communist- and Soviet-era seizures and border changes, and appears to establish citizenship restitution as a right. Using UK media coverage of Romania’s policy of citizen-ship restitution vis-à-vis Moldova, the paper shows the extent to which this policy is framed as an ille-gitimate loophole propagated by a ‘Romanian Other’ which is ‘giving out’ EU passports, exploited by an impoverished and criminal ‘Moldovan Other’, and inflicted on a ‘UK Self’ that is powerless to stem the tide of migration and block routes to gaining access to the EU via such policies. However, the paper also contrasts, and challenges, this media framing by using interviews with those acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova to demonstrate the extent to which acquiring Romanian citizenship in Moldova is a costly and lengthy procedure. Overall, the paper shows the extent to which citizenship restitution is a contested procedure, constructed as a right by the state seeking to compensate former citizens, and as illegitimate by those who construct a logic resulting from feeling threatened by policies of citizenship restitution.
The Polish Government’s proposal, submitted in autumn 2017, for a comprehensive reprivatisation bill revived the international discussion on the scope of Polish authorities’ obligations to return property taken during World War II and subsequently by the communist regime. However, many inaccurate and incorrect statements are cited in the discussions, e.g. the argument that the duty of the Polish authorities to carry out restitution is embedded in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocol No. 1. This article challenges that claim and analyses the jurisprudence of the Convention’s judicial oversight bodies in cases raising issues of restitution of property taken over in Poland before the accession to both of the above-mentioned international agreements. In the article I argue that there is no legal basis for claiming that there exists a legal obligation upon the Polish State stemming directly from international law – in particular human rights law – to return the property and that the only possibly successful legal claims in this regard are those that can already be derived from the provisions of the Polish law applicable to these kinds of cases. In its latest rulings, issued in 2017–2019, the European Court of Human Rights determined the scope of responsibility incumbent on Polish authorities in this respect.