My thesis examines the evolution of the enabling legislation to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (34) 1995, through the historical, legal, philosophical and ideological issues that underpinned the Act. Transitional justice is an interregnum characteristic and comprises both accountability and the establishment of a moral society. Historically, the South African government's principal adversary, the African National Congress (ANC) advocated a just, multi-racial and equitable society through leaders such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Professor Z.K. Matthews and Chief Albert Luthuli. ANC leaders from 191 2-1 960 were mission educated and regarded segregation as the antithesis of their strong Christian principles and in opposition to Gospel values. They advocated the reformation of South African society through passive resistance and the attainment of the franchise. After the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and the entrenchment of "grand apartheid", the ANC adopted the armed struggle while the state committed numerous gross human rights violations to maintain apartheid. While exiled, the ANC established its just war claims with a meritorious cause, its jus ad bellum. By 1990 a settlement was negotiated between the principal adversaries. The interregnum was characterised by violence, commissions of inquiry and various requests for indemnification/amnesty. The ANC's just war claims were eroded with allegations of atrocities in its military camps that severely undermined its claims to the moral high-ground. Its poor conduct of the armed struggle, its jus in bello, was confirmed in various subsequent reports. The ANC's decisive election victory of April 1994 provided the Congress with an opportunity to structure transitional justice through the enabling legislation to the TRC on its own terms and prove through the self-incriminating evidence that emerged at the TRC hearings that apartheid was a crime against humanity and that the armed struggle was a just war with a meritorious jus ad bellum.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/289869 |
| Creators | Castel, Heather Lorraine |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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