Suchergebnisse

"15 April 2016 marked 20 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings began. The TRC was set up to give an opportunity for perpetrators of human rights transgressions to come clean about the atrocities that happened during those evil days of apartheid. Sadly, only half of the truth came to the fore. Many families still do not know what happened to their loved ones. There are few people better placed than Mary Burton to write about the TRC, having been one of its Commissioners. Burton's pocket book provides an informed account from the inside of the process and workings of the TRC and a measured and balanced assessment of its outcomes and significance. Even at the time of its existence, the TRC came in for criticism from a variety of quarters: both the African National Congress and ex-President F.W. de Klerk took legal action to challenge or prevent the publication of the Commission's report; however, the Commission also fulfilled a vital and important role in the transition from apartheid to democracy, and it has become a model for other countries wishing to undertake similar journeys to deal with past atrocities and come to some kind of national resolution, reconciliation or closure."--Publisher's website

This article aims to situate the fascinating and deeply controversial work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa within a theoretical context that may explain how its attempt to overcome the tensions between truth seeking and amnesty giving stumbled on its use of law to bring about reconciliation. It locates the root of the problem in the dual nature of the TRC as public confessional and legal tribunal, and underlying it the incongruent logic of law on the one hand and reconciliation on the other, the former requiring the reductions of risks, the latter requiring risk to be embraced.