Amnesty Process Research Articles

Wayuu people's positions regarding the acceptability of political amnesties in Colombia

AbstractThis study mapped the diverse personal positions of the Wayuu indigenous community in Colombia regarding the acceptability of political amnesties in a post‐conflict context. The sample was composed of 130 indigenous adults between 18 and 74 years of age residing in the Guajira region, who were shown 12 amnesty‐related scenarios. These scenarios were composed according to a three‐factor design: (a) the level of detail that the amnesty applicant (former combatant of some illegal armed group in Colombia) was willing to disclose, (b) whether or not the applicant asked for forgiveness, and (c) the severity of the punishment endured by the amnesty applicant (A cluster analysis yielded three qualitatively different positions: never acceptable (18%), almost always acceptable (9%) and depends jointly on the quality of the information and remorse (73%). For the vast majority of Wayuu community members, a political amnesty for a former combatant of a Colombian armed group is not acceptable. For those who have accepted it, amnesty is only possible if the applicant proves that he or she is not causing harm to third parties. And it would also be conditioned to the particular situation of each case. A collective amnesty process has no chance of being considered acceptable.

Temporalidad en la regulación de migrantes que ingresan a la República de ecuador

The present study focuses on analyzing the temporality of the regularization of migrants entering the country, taking as a reference the current regulations and the actions carried out by the National Government through the executive branch. Its development is based on the qualitative methodological approach, of a documentary and bibliographic type, which is carried out on legislation and doctrine as sources of law. The results obtained indicate that the State has addressed one of the largest migratory flows, being a country that has received the largest number of migrants and many of them in an irregular situation, which requires the intervention of the human mobility authorities to respond. appropriate to citizens in this situation. In this way, it is concluded that the State has designed plans for the regularization of migrants in an extraordinary way, in which an amnesty process has mediated and that they have generated for the second time the granting of exceptional visas, whose temporality has been regulated by means of Executive decrees, which comply with the current needs of human mobility and whose periods of application are allowed to offer efficient and effective solutions to guarantee the exercise of the human rights of migrants.

Book Review: André du Toit Amnesty Chronicles: The Inner History of the Amnesty Negotiations During the South African Transition, and the Origins of the TRC’s Amnesty Process (2022)

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A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROCESS FOR ZIMBABWE? SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

This paper considers African and other truth commissions and applies the lessons and experiences of other countries in order to map a strategy and offer a model for a Zimbabwean truth and reconciliation commission. Given Zimbabwe’s history (especially over the last three years) of collective violence and serious human rights abuses, the paper proposes that a truth commission in post-transition Zimbabwe might be an important means of promoting reconciliation and reducing past tensions. To this end the paper focuses on the manner in which a future Zimbabwean truth and reconciliation commission might be established. The paper also provides a briefsynopsis of the topic of amnesty and considers how an amnesty process might be accommodated within a future Zimbabwean truth and reconciliation comission and how such amnesty process might be reconciled with the imperative of prosecuting offenders in light of the recently created International Criminal Court.

How Conditional Amnesties Can Assist Transitional Societies in Delivering on the Right to the Truth

This article explores how conditional amnesties can assist post-conflict societies to recover truth. It examines how such amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results as part of transitional justice mechanisms. Thus, a central question is to see how amnesties can be used for truth recovery purposes. For that reason, the status and role of amnesties, and whether such amnesties can be used to learn more about the past and assist in truth recovery is explored. The article explores what amnesties are, how prevalent they are and how amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results. An issue that is also explored is whether amnesties are needed for perpetrators to participate in transitional justice mechanisms. The argument that is made, in this regard, is that amnesty is absolutely necessary to persuade perpetrators to testify. If they do not have such legal protection, perpetrators fear the legal consequences that may result if they admit to crimes for which they have not been charged. Another question that is examined concerns whether amnesties, and specifically conditional amnesties, pass international law muster. This article therefore investigates the continual and extensive use of amnesty to determine whether a conditional amnesty violates international law. The article suggests how a conditional amnesty process could be structured and what difficulties such a process should avoid if perpetrators are to enter such a process.

REMORSE AND REPENTANCE STRIPPED OF ITS VALIDITY. AMNESTY GRANTED BY THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION OF SOUTH AFRICA

During the South African amnesty process perpetrators would get amnesty if they could prove that there was a political motive for committing their actions, their deeds were proportionate, that they happened during and between the years 1960 and 1994, and if they gave full disclosure. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the following: the fact that remorse and repentance were not required in order for perpetrators to get amnesty, left the reconciliation process in a vacuum. The inclusion of remorse and repentance as a requirement for amnesty, would have established a true (not a cheap) forgiveness and a ‘thick’ reconciliation process between perpetrators and victims. Remorse and repentance would have requested an admission and regret of wrongdoing, followed by an act of repentance underwritten by acts of contrition.Â

Amnesty: a ‘conversation’ within the medium of culture. A dialogue approach to the strategy of amnesty in protracted social conflict situations

In contemporary conflict resolution there are various strategies in place to assist the liberal peace-building project. This article investigates the controversial strategy of amnesty within protracted social conflict situations. It challenges the juridical approach towards the strategy by exploring amnesty as a ‘dialogue’ or ‘conversation’ within the medium of cultures. The author will utilise Feller and Ryan's eight multidisciplinary characteristics of ‘dialogue’ to explore amnesty as a conversation among its participants and wider society. This is supplemented by a case study examining the amnesty process under the Amnesty Act 2000 in the East-Central African nation of Uganda. It concludes with theoretical and policy implications for both scholars and practitioners of conflict resolution.

Remorse and repentance stripped of its validity. Amnesty granted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa1&2

During the South African amnesty process perpetrators would get amnesty if they could prove that there was a political motive for committing their actions, their deeds were proportionate, that they happened during and between the years 1960 and 1994, and if they gave full disclosure. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the following: the fact that remorse and repentance were not required in order for perpetrators to get amnesty, left the reconciliation process in a vacuum. The inclusion of remorse and repentance as a requirement for amnesty, would have established a true (not a cheap) forgiveness and a ‘thick’ reconciliation process between perpetrators and victims. Remorse and repentance would have requested an admission and regret of wrongdoing, followed by an act of repentance underwritten by acts of contrition.

Armed-Group Amnesty and Military Integration in South Sudan

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, the government of South Sudan has sought to neutralise the threat that armed groups pose to stability through their integration into the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), rather than coercion. Although successful in part, this approach has nevertheless led to the continued proliferation of armed groups. In this article, Lesley Anne Warner analyses how the government of South Sudan and the SPLA have administered the amnesty and integration process, concluding that military integration is a process that is managed, but not yet fully mastered.

Freedom deprivation punishment in Serbia during 1804-1860

This text is on freedom deprivation punishment in Serbia during the first half of 19th century, i.e. since the beginning of the First Serbian uprising in 1804 and till passing the Criminal law in 1860. Author first emphasises that the freedom deprivation punishment doesn't have long tradition, although in medieval Serbia and under Turkish rule existed imprisonment in dungeon, but it was foremost some form of custody before a trial, and subsequently as keeping a prisoner after the verdict until its effectuation. It wasn't a freedom deprivation punishment in modern sense. During 1804 - 1813 there was so called 'haps' i.e. apprehension, though Uprising authorities built also 'real' prisons for punishment purpose. Imprisonment of culprits was a condition for compulsory labour, which could be very useful utilized under given circumstances. Since the beginning 1820-ties when first Serbian courts were established, beside 'haps' appears also imprisonment in heavy shackles. However there was no substantial difference between apprehension and imprisonment. In this time the sentence to imprisonment was combined with the punishment with beating (or sometimes with the flogging at the end of imprisonment). The Regulation of County courts from January 26th 1840 mentions several forms of freedom deprivation punishment, but in praxis freedom deprivation was reduced on either 'eternal' imprisonment or time-sentenced imprisonment. Since the beginning of 1840-ties freedom deprivation was more frequently used as punishment and its implementation was continually spreading. For heaviest crimes was instead death penalty and running gauntlet sentenced freedom deprivation, either from courts or from supreme authority in the amnesty process. Imprisonment was effectuated either at police reformatories (for shorter penalties) or at the penitentiary institutions (for longer imprisonment). By the end of 1830-ties an issue of imprisonment of female perpetrators emerged, together with the problem of freedom deprivation punishment for mentally ill committers of criminal acts. Relatively early and in increasing number appeared regulations on effectuation of freedom deprivation punishments, intended to solve numerous practical and principle questions about realization of this penalty. Finally on December 20th 1851 was issued the Structure of Experimental Economy in Topčider Penitentiary, which regulated treatment of convicts, their work, penalties, behavior of guards etc. A new punishment purpose has become noticeable - compulsory re-education and remission through work, as a difference to previous aims: sheer intimidation and neutralization of public danger. At the end of herein observed time, in the year 1858 appeared first theoretical work on penitentiary institutions and Project of Law on Effectuation of Freedom Deprivation Penalties. This project was elaborated on broad fundaments, with regulations for each form of freedom deprivation penalty, but wasn't accepted due to the lack of financial means.

Constitutionalism and transitional justice in South Africa

Andrea Lollini's intellectual contribution...offers important and interesting points of departure on a plurality of issues and disciplines that are rooted in established academic culture but that may also anticipate the outcome of future research. * [From the Foreword] Over the last fifteen years, the South African postapartheid Transitional Amnesty Process - implemented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) - has been extensively analyzed by scholars and commentators from around the world and from almost every discipline of human sciences. Lawyers, historians, anthropologists and sociologists as well as political scientists have tried to understand, describe and comment on the 'shocking' South African political decision to give amnesty to all who fully disclosed their politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era. Investigating the postapartheid transition in South Africa from a multidisciplinary perspective involving constitutional law, criminal law, history and political science, this book explores the overlapping of the postapartheid constitution-making process and the Amnesty Process for political violence under apartheid and shows that both processes represent important innovations in terms of constitutional law and transitional justice systems. Both processes contain mechanisms that encourage the constitution of the unity of the political body while ensuring future solidity and stability. From this perspective, the book deals with the importance of several concepts such as truth about the past, publicly shared memory, unity of the political body and public confession.

The democratic turn and (the limits of) constitutional patriotism after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission : Albutt v CSVR

On 23 February 2010, the South African Constitutional Court unanimously dismissed an appeal against an interim interdict which prevented President Zuma from pardoning apartheid criminals, until such time as the victims of the crimes in question had been given an opportunity to make representations to the President. Given its subject matter, the Albutt judgment forms part of an important quartet of recent cases in which the Constitutional Court was asked to revisit the nature, scope and effect of the amnesty process administered in the late 1990s by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) under the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995. An obvious way of reading the Albutt judgment would therefore be to explore its place within the recent constitutional retrospective of the TRC process. Fruitful and important as such a reading might be, it is not one which I wish to pursue here.

Religion and Conflict Resolution: Christianity and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Megan Shore. There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile, Antjie Krog, Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele. Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, eds. Francois du Bois and Antje du Bois-Pedain. Post-TRC Prosecutions in South Africa: Accountability for Political Crimes

South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy has been the subject of intense scholarly interest. It started during the pre-1994 negotiations for a transitional settlement, intensified in the post-1994 era with the introduction of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and continued after the TRC completed its tenure. The result has been a myriad of publications that have enriched the field of transitional justice. Given the extensive scholarly coverage that South Africa's transition and the TRC in particular have received, one would assume that the subject has been exhausted. It is hard to imagine that any new books on the topic would provide additional insight into what many others have extensively addressed. Yet the reality is that transitional justice processes, particularly reconciliation and justice (or perceptions thereof), often unfold over an extended period of time. The ongoing nature of these processes in South Africa, widely referred to as the ‘unfinished...

Indemnity, Amnesty, Pardon and Prosecution Guidelines in South Africa

In charting the history of the amnesty and amnesty-like measures in South Africa, this paper will begin in Part 2 by providing a brief overview of the apartheid system and the violations committed by the parties to the conflict that resulted. Then in Part 3 it will explore the triggers that forced the apartheid regime to move towards a negotiated transition. Part 4 will discuss the origins of the amnesty question in the transition through the struggle to define political crimes. Part 5 will consider the evolving positions of the government and the ANC towards amnesty and truth recovery in a context of high levels of violence and greater public knowledge of the crimes committed by both sides. Part 6 will explore the amnesty provisions in the postamble to the Interim Constitution 1993. Part 7 will briefly discuss the implementation of the 1990 and 1992 indemnity laws following the transfer of power. The provisions of the Interim Constitution relating to amnesty were given more detail in the subsequent Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 1995, which created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), with its Amnesty Committee. This work of this commission will be explored in Part 8 and Part 9 will analyse the mandate and operations of the Amnesty Committee. Part 10 will evaluate how far the South African amnesty process achieved the goals outlined in the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. Then, Part 11 will explore the relationship between the amnesty and trials, and in particular, it will discuss how the new National Prosecution Policy and the possibility of presidential pardons for political prisoners affect the legacy of the TRC. This paper will argue that South Africa provides an important case study that highlights that prosecutions and amnesty can co-exist and be complementary. Furthermore, the question of who was eligible for amnesty within South Africa raised interesting questions in relation to whether violent crimes could be defined as political, whether the crimes of the apartheid state should be treated equally to the crimes of its opponents, and the extent to which truth recovery can be incorporated in different models of amnesty, indemnity and prison releases.

'They have built a legal system without punishment': reflections on the use of amnesty in the South African transition

The conditional amnesty process administered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an innovative feature of the transition to democracy in South Africa, yet it remains relatively under-analysed in comparison with other aspects of the TRC’s work. Moreover, although the South African TRC has inspired a new generation of truth commissions in Africa and around the world, the amnesty process has never been repeated. This paper examines the context of the use of amnesty in South Africa and offers some critical reflections on the South African amnesty process, particularly in the context of the rise of international criminal law and the creation of the International Criminal Court. Noting that the demand for ‘amnesties for peace’ has not diminished, it argues that, although the South African amnesty process was in some respects flawed both in its conception and implementation, it merits consideration by other countries in transition and offers valuable lessons for the development of international legal policy.

In exchange for truth: The polish lustrations and the South African amnesty process*

Poland and South Africa have each inherited a similar legacy of human rights violations perpetrated by previous authoritarian regimes; they each underwent complicated political transitions and used similar methods of dealing with the remnants of their previous regimes. South Africa granted amnesty from criminal prosecution to perpetrators in exchange for truth about their involvement in the violations of the past. In Poland leading public posts were granted in accordance with the same principle of truth exchange. However, existing frameworks for the study of transitional justice do not allow for immediate comparison of the relative benefits and pitfalls of granting amnesty to criminals vis-à-vis measures to provide public sector employment. This paper extends the existing framework of transitional justice and applies it to the study of the major policy choices of the Polish lustration process (1999–2002) and the South African amnesty process (1996–2000). They encompass components such as the formal scope of truth, the choice of particular procedures, sanctions, transparency and impartiality. The comparison provides us with a more nuanced understanding of the institutional mechanisms that allow for the utilisation of the meaning of truth in complicated transitions from authoritarian regimes. *The original version of the paper was presented at the joint annual meeting of the Law & Society Association and the Canadian LSA in Vancouver in 2002.

The Provocations of Amnesty: Memory, Justice and Impunity

Prosecutions, amnesty and nation-building: Debating the questions of amnesty - a symposium convened in Cape Town, 4 October 2001 introductory remarks why prosecutions are necessary the Case for a general amnesty prosecutorial discretion four sayings and a denouement responding to the symposium - the legacy of the TRC Dumisa ntsebeza - revisiting the TRC's assumptions about racial healing. Can amnesty be reconciled with justice? restorative justice - ambiguities and limitations of a theory alternatives to revenge - building a vocabulary of reconciliation through political pardon truth commissions and judicial trials - complementary or antagonistic servants of public justice? amnesty and international law. the concept, context and controversy of Public Amnesty the choice for amnesty - did political Necessity Trump Moral Duty? easy to forget or never (Again) hard to remember? History, Memory and the 'Publicity' of Amnesty amnesty from an african point of view South Africa's amnesty revisited. amnesty at the TRC - organisational dilemmas, critical assessments an overview of the TRC amnesty process truth, evidence, and history - a critical review of aspects of the amnesty process degrees of truth - amnesty and limitations in the truth recovery project. After amnesty: Imperatives, applications, and uncertainty to prosecute or not to prosecute? constitutional and legal issues concerning criminal trials a second bite at the amnesty cherry? constitutional and policy issues around legislation for a Second amnesty the presidential pardons and the media - healing a wound with salt apartheid's victims in the Midst of Amnesty's promise truth without reconciliation, reconciliation without truth.

Violence, Amnesty and Transitional Law: “private” Acts and “public” Truth in South Africa

AbstractWhereas amnesty is generally associated with impunity and denial, in South Africa, amnesty was pulled into the reach of justice and reconciliation. This article assesses the extent to which South Africa's amnesty fulfilled these normative goals. It centers on the difficulty of differentiating between “private” acts and “political” crimes deserving of amnesty. It argues that the determination of political crimes obfuscated the full extent of apartheid violence and responsibility for it. Consequently, the amnesty process produced a truncated “truth” about apartheid violence that was insufficient to the task of overcoming the past. This is in part an intractable problem embedded in the conflicting tasks of transitional law. The lesson of hope that South Africa offers to other transitional nations is that amnesty should be wound into the promises of democracy without creating false expectations of reconciliation or simplistic truths about the past.

Victims as the Heart of the Matter: The South African Amnesty Process as Promised in Practice

The South African amnesty process, and the truth and reconciliation commission of which it is a part, has been hailed as one of the most innovative and successful commissions to address a history of gross violations of human rights in a transitional society. This paper begins to look at the accomplishments of the amnesty process from the perspective of victims - those who suffered violations of their fundamental rights at the hands of those individuals who applied for amnesty. In particular it looks at the treatment, role, and perspectives of victims as reflected in the 921 amnesty decisions published to date, and in selective transcripts of amnesty hearings.

Comment on a Short Communication: An Evaluation of Psychological Reports Considered in the Amnesty Process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Lionel Nicholas

In the above mentioned article the author, inter alia, attempts to evaluate a report written by an expert consultant and submitted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This commentary will show that the author's evaluation is fraught with inconsistencies and misinterpreted or incorrectly reported facts and that it does nothing to contribute to a debate on either the psychiatric diagnosis of mental illness or the amnesty process. It will also ask why an article of this nature was published in a professional publication such as the South African Journal of Psychology.