Chamber rejects Communist bill ending lustration

The Chamber of Deputies has rejected a Communist Party bill that would have brought to an end a law barring those who collaborated with the secret police under communism from holding high office. The smallest party in the governing coalition, the Christian Democrats, had threatened to quit the government if the legislation reached a second reading. In the end some 121 of the 167 MPs present in the lower house voted against the motion. The so-called lustration law was introduced in the early 1990s and requires aspirants to important posts to get a security clearing.