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TRNUC to resume hearing in April |04 March 2021

The Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission is expected to resume hearing complainants, witnesses, and suspects on April 12, 2021.

According to a communiqué from the Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC), the commission had received 485 cases prior to the deadline of February 2020. Of these 485 cases, the commission has determined 344 admissible and 40 inadmissible and 34 cases have been retracted by complainants while 67 cases are awaiting admissibility determinations due to the complainants having failed to provide sufficient information for that determination to be made.

To date, the commission has heard 661 complainants, witnesses, and suspects in 136 hearings. The commission had intended to try and finish hearing all evidence during 2021 so that it could focus the last six months of its mandate on the completion of its work.  However, with the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, its hearings may now go into early next year. Currently the commission intends to recommence its hearings on April 12, 2021 when most people would have received their two doses of the vaccinations against Covid-19.

It has to be emphasised that the time the commission is not in hearings is not time wasted. The hearing of cases represents just the surface of the commission’s work.  During the period it is not sitting in public sittings the commission is continuing to investigate its cases, it is also organising, transcribing and translating the hearing record, determinations are being drafted and investigations closed in those cases in which investigations have been completed. Currently, 40 to 50 case determinations are being drafted simultaneously. Many of the cases are very complicated and allege a range of human rights violations as is evident from the commission's hearings. The commissioners are deliberating on those determinations. This process is complex and time-consuming. In addition the commission has drafted its amnesty procedures and is preparing the template for amnesty petitions. It has prepared the outline for its final report and commissioners are drafting chapters for that report. The public should rest well assured that some of the commissioners are working more than full-time to try and meet the temporal timeframe of its mandate and be able to complete its work by August 9, 2022. 

The commission has also worked to develop and carry out surveys to inform its approach to reparations, including compensation, and to amnesty proceedings. In view of the fact that one of the major aims of the commission is to bring about reconciliation, it is important that the wider community understands and contributes to the policies that will guide its approach to these two issues.

The questionnaires for the survey are available at the Victoria Post Office, on the commission’s website - www.trnuc.sc and from its office at Perseverance 2 - Building H3, Josephine Cafrine Road. The commission is inviting as many people as possible to fill in the questionnaires and return them, either by email to: survey@trnuc.sc or deposit them in the boxes at the Mayor’s office on State House Avenue. Please call 4290399 for further assistance.

 

Press release from the TRNUC

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