TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 11

Part OtherDepts

Subsection 8

■ FOURTH PHASE: REORGANISATION AND RESTRUCTURING

53 The fourth phase involved the redeployment of twenty-four of the investigators to the Amnesty Committee with a view to adding value to 'hearable' amnesty applications. Six of the twenty-four investigators were assigned back into the Investigation Unit in order to complete the remaining investigations into human rights violations and special investigations. This phase was in line with the Commission’s staff roll out and close down plans.

54 This phase also involved the redeployment of approximately sixty low level corroborators from the Investigation Unit to the Human Rights Violations Committee, appropriately spread between the four regional offices in line with the population density and demographics of the areas they covered.

■ ACTIVITIES OF THE INVESTIGATION UNIT: PATTERNS AND THEMES

Human rights violations investigations

55 The Investigation Unit facilitated this activity on behalf of the Human Rights Violations Committee.

Amnesty applicants investigations

56 Amnesty applications were co-ordinated from the national office in Cape Town with the units in the four regions. The co-ordinator liaised with and reported to the Amnesty Committee and channelled investigations to the appropriate regions. The co-ordinator was also responsible for perusing applications that might assist in the linking of applications, extracting applications which might help complete human rights violations investigations, and identifying general patterns which would not necessarily be apparent if applications were sent directly to the regions.

57 The Investigation Unit handled amnesty applications as follows. First, the evidence analysts made an initial investigative request to the amnesty co-ordinator. The amnesty co-ordinator perused the application and referred it either to the head of the Investigation Unit in the appropriate region(s) for investigation or back to the evidence leader if the application was not ready for investigation or there was some other problem. Next, the Investigation Unit examined the application and request and assigned a specific investigator to deal with the matter. Finally, the investigative report was completed and sent to the evidence analyst co-ordinator, who examined the report and directed it to the relevant evidence leader. If the evidence leader was satisfied with the report, the necessary logistic steps were taken to organise a hearing.