TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 2

Chapter 1

Subsection 2

THE COMMISSION’S REPARATION AND REHABILITATION POLICY

8. The policy recommendations submitted to the President by the Commission consisted of five basic components. Following internationally accepted approaches to reparation and rehabilitation, the RRC stressed the following principles:

• a Redress: the right to fair and adequate compensation;
• b Restitution: the right to the restoration, where possible, of the situation existing prior to the violation;
• c Rehabilitation: the right to medical and psychological care, as well as such other services and/or interventions at both individual and community level that would facilitate full re habilitation ;
• d Restoration of dignity: the right of the individual/community to an acknowledgment of the violation committed and the right to a sense of worth, and
• e Reassurance of non-repetition: the right to a guarantee, by means of appropriate legislative and/or institutional intervention and reform, that the violation will not be repeated.

9. These principles provided a basic framework from which to elaborate the specific proposals outlined below:⁶

Urgent interim reparation

10. UIR is defined as assistance for people in urgent need, with a view to providing them with access to appropriate services and facilities. In this regard, the Commission recommended that limited financial resources be made available to facilitate such access where necessary.

Individual reparation grants

11. This is an individual financial grant scheme. The Commission recommended that each victim of a gross human rights violation receive a financial grant, based on various criteria, to be paid over a period of six years.

12. It was proposed that individual reparation grants be paid to victims (if alive) or relatives/dependants (where victims were deceased). The amount to be paid should be calculated according to three criteria: an amount that acknowledges the suffering caused by the violation; an amount that enables access to requisite services and facilities, and an amount that subsidises daily living costs accord i n g to socio-economic circumstances. As the cost of living is higher in rural than in urban areas, it was recommended that victims living in the rural areas should receive a slightly higher grant. The amount also varied according to the number of dependants (up to a maximum of R23 023 per annum). It was re commended that the annual amount be paid twice a year for a period of six years and be administered by the Preside n t ’s Fund, which is located within the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Symbolic reparation and legal and administrative measures

13. Symbolic reparation encompasses measures that facilitate the communal process of remembering and commemorating the pain and victories of the past. Such measures aim to restore the dignity of victims and survivors.

14. Commemorative aspects include exhumations, tombstones, memorials or monuments, and the renaming of streets or public facilities.

15. Legal and administrative measures include matters such as the issuing of death certificates or declarations of death in the case of people who have disappeared , expunging criminal records where people were sentenced for politically related offences, and expediting outstanding legal matters.

Community rehabilitation programmes

16. The establishment of government-led community-based services and activities is aimed at promoting the healing and recovery of individuals and communities affected by human rights violations. As many victims were based in communities that were subjected to systemic abuse, the RRC identified possible re h a b i litation p rogrammes and recommended a series of interventions at both community and national level. These included programmes to demilitarise youth who had been involved in or witnessed political violence over decades; programmes to resettle the many thousands displaced by political violence; mental health and trauma counselling, as well as programmes to rehabilitate and reintegrate perpetrators of gross violations of human rights into normal community life.

Institutional reform

17. Institutional reform included legal, administrative and institutional measures designed to prevent the recurrence of abuses of human rights. The Commission d rew up a fairly substantial set of recommendations aimed at the creation and maintenance of a stable society – a society that would never again allow the kind of violations experienced during the Commission’s mandate period. These included recommendations relating to the judiciary, security forces and correctional services as well as other sectors in society such as education, business and media.

18. The RRC, focusing on the need to implement these recommendations, propose d that a structure or body be set up in the office of the State President or Deputy P resident and headed by a national director of Reparation and Rehabilitation. Further, the RRC recommended that reparation desks be established at provincial and municipal levels to ensure effective delivery and monitoring.