Balancing Justice and Social Unity: Political Theory and the Idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract

The so-called 'third wave' of democratization, which occurred from the 1970s and through the 1980s, has brought with it a novel institutional response to the injustices and evils perpetrated and encouraged by predecessor regimes. 'Truth commissions' have emerged in Latin America and Africa as an alternative to full prosecution of offenders, on the one hand, and unconditional amnesty, on the other. Advocates of these institutions generally take the view that some form of recognition and disclosure of past offences is necessary if the new democracies are to distance themselves from the past and thus establish their legitimacy. However, they also argue that a commitment to full prosecution through the criminal justice system or through war crimes trials would be equally threatening to the new democracies by provoking hostility and division. In the circumstances of the recent transitions to democracy, 'transitional justice,' and the goal of democratization, it is suggested, require something different from the demands of strict retributive justice. Skeptical critics, on the other hand, have argued that this amounts to making a virtue out of necessity or more correctly, out of a particular (and perhaps mistaken) judgement concerning necessity. On this view, truth commissions are merely political compromises, institutions spawned by an unprincipled negotiation of a transfer of power. Justice becomes the casualty of a political calculation. What are we to think of this disagreement? Does the very idea of a truth commission involve a sacrifice of justice to expediency? Some survivors of past attacks and families of victims clearly think so. Recently, Michael Walzer commented that these individuals. make 'elemental