A bill has been approved by the Polish parliament designed to remove people from public life who collaborated with the communist secret services.
The bill, which now requires senate and presidential approval, could lead to the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of people working in the government, business and the media.
Unlike other former Soviet-bloc countries, Poland has never carried out a purge of people who collaborated with the former communist regime.
The Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, and his twin brother, Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have made casting off the country's communist past a priority since their conservative PiS party won parliamentary elections last year.
Under the proposals, public figures, senior officials, judges, teachers, journalists and others affected by the law could be sacked if they are found to have collaborated or if they fail to apply for a vetting certificate.
Files on public figures dating from the era of communist rule, which ended in 1989 in Poland, are to be published on the internet under the proposed law, together with the names of former secret police officials.
The measure would be a significant extension of the current legislation, which requires parliament members, ministers, judges, senior officials and a number of other public figures to whether they collaborated with communist secret police and intelligence services.
The present legislation affects some 27,000 people while the new law could affect several hundred thousand, according to official estimates.
Allegations of lying about her alleged links with communist secret police led to the sacking of Zyta Gilowska as finance minister last month. She denies the accusations.
