South Africa

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995-2002) was mandated to investigate gross human rights violations committed during apartheid from 1960 to 1994. According to its founding legislation, the commission’s objectives included establishing as complete a picture as possible of the causes, nature and extent of the violations; facilitating the granting of amnesty to persons who made full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to acts associated with a political objective; establishing and making known the fate or whereabouts of victims and restoring the human and civil dignity of those victims by granting them an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations they experienced and by recommending reparation measures; and compiling a report with as comprehensive an account as possible of the activities and findings of the commission, including recommendations of measures to prevent future violations of human rights.