 Lustration refers to legal measures that permit or require the investigation of individuals running for election, serving in the military, or working in government agencies, universities, or the media. Individuals found to have connections to past injustices or perpetrating groups may then be publicly exposed or excluded from serving in public roles (David 2011). Such measures are frequently adopted during postwar occupations or in countries transitioning to democracy. Lustration is sometimes conceived of as a punitive measure, which opens practitioners up to charges of engaging in collective forms of punishment that ignore individual desert and violating prohibitions on retroactive law (Cohen 1995, Meierhenrich 2006). Lustration has also been defended in forward-looking terms as a means of securing peace or a political transition as well as reestablishing trust in government by assuring the public that past wrongdoers will no longer be in power (Chiu 2011). Criticisms of lustration as a means of pursuing political reconciliation highlight the potential for biased application of the law (Cohen 1995), warn of the difficulties of re-establishing a functional government when much of the experienced and educated workforce is excluded from participation (Hollywood 2007), and worry that lustration encourages the continuation of suspicion rather than cooperation among former enemies (Govier 2006).