TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 6

Subsection 8

Institutional hearings

39 At the institutional hearings, the Commission sought to receive evidence from various professions, institutions and organisations about the role they had played in committing, resisting or facilitating human rights abuse. The purpose of these hearings was to enrich the Commission’s analysis of human rights abuse by

exploring how various social institutions contributed to the conflicts of the past. The hearings often provoked considerable public debate about, for example, the role of the legal and medical professions during the Commission’s mandate period. They also triggered or encouraged introspection and self-analysis by these professions and organisations. In addition, they helped the Commission to formulate some of the recommendations made to the President concerning legislative, institutional and administrative measures that should be taken to prevent future human rights abuse. Institutions were often criticised for failing to acknowledge adequately their complicity in gross human rights violations. In certain instances, however, institutional hearings served as a catalyst for professions and organisations themselves, triggering transformation from within.

40 The following institutional hearings were held:³

a health sector hearings

b legal hearings

c media hearings

d business hearings

e prison hearings

f faith communities hearing

Political party hearings

41 The Commission provided political parties with an opportunity to offer their perspectives on the causes and nature of the conflicts of the past, together with an account of their involvement in and/or responsibility for gross violations of human rights. The hearings examined as carefully as possible the question of accountability for gross violations of human rights. In most instances, these hearings consisted of two phases. In the first phase, the Commission allowed the political parties to make their submissions and asked questions only for purposes of clarification. In the second phase, the Commission put substantive questions to the various parties, based on a detailed study of their submissions and of evidence gathered through investigations and research.