loi mémorielle in French) is a legal provision governing the interpretation of historical events and showcases the legislator's or judicial preference for a certain narrative about the past.
Various types of memory laws exist, in particular, in countries that allow for the introduction of limitations to the freedom of expression to protect other values, such as the democratic character of the state, the rights and reputation of others, and historical truth.
Uladzislau Belavusau and Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias define memory laws as "enshrine[ing] state-approved interpretations of historical events.
[4] Even without a criminal sanction, memory laws may still produce a chilling effect and limit free expression on historical topics, especially among historians and other researchers.
The term "loi mémorielle" (memory law) originally appeared in December 2005, in Françoise Chandernagor article in Le Monde magazine.
[6] Chandernagor protested about the increasing number of laws enacted with the intention of "forc(ing) on historians the lens through which to consider the past".
Therefore, the often-invoked rationale for imposing bans on the denial of historical crimes is that doing so prevents xenophobic violence and protects the public order today.
See: Laws protecting historical figures prohibit disparaging the memory of national heroes often reinforce a cult of personality.
[31] Some of these laws object to or even prohibit certain commemorations, especially held by minorities who have different views of historical events than a majorities or titular nations.
[34] According to the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Edison Lanza [es], responding to attempted censorship under the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, "the concept of 'defamation' of a nation or a state is incompatible with international standards that refer to the protection of the reputation of individual persons" and such a law would not be accepted under the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights.
Competing nationalisms may be channeled through memory laws adopted in neighboring countries sharing a difficult history and producing conflicting accounts on the past.
[3] The nexus of securitization and historical memory[41] is visible in constitutional and criminal law provisions in post-Soviet democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.
[42] Uladzislau Belavusau introduced the term and has marked the rise of "mnemonic constitutionalism" in Europe, that is a type of legislation and judicial decisions that transcend pure measures against genocide denialism and declarative memory laws postulating or commemorating certain historical events", embedding historical myths into constitutional texts and major statutes.
In counterpoint, in 2005 the country adopted loi Mekacher with provisions ordering to include information about positive elements of French presence in colonies, in particular in North Africa.
Access to Russian archives on the Katyn Massacre pronounced in the European Court of Human Rights judgment Janowiec and Others v. Russia in 2012.
Historical Memory Law from 2007, amended in 2016, aimed at dealing with some of the legacy of the dictatorship of Franco, and partly addressed the previous bi-partisan agreement during its democratic transition known as Pact of Forgetting.