Part II The Right to Know, B Commissions of Inquiry, Principle 9 Guarantees for Persons Implicated

Subject(s):

Right to truth — Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

Principle 9 provides guarantees of procedural fairness for persons implicated in past violations. An important element of a commission’s historical account is to identify those responsible for past violations, which contributes to the fulfilment of the right to truth. However, the consequences of being named in a final report can have important ramifications, especially for an individual’s reputation, family life and privacy. Before commissions publish findings in relation to specific persons, best practice dictates that information implicating individuals be corroborated and that they be afforded a right to reply to the allegations against them. Such requirements impose administrative burdens on commissions given their often limited resources and short temporal mandates. After giving a contextual and historical background on Principle 9, this chapter discusses its theoretical framework and how commissions operate in practice in terms of verifying the allegations against certain individuals.