Dealing with the past

The right to know and the duty to remember include:

• the individual right of victims and their families to know the truth about the wrongs inflicted on them and their relatives;

• the collective right of society to know the truth about the past events and circumstances that led to serious human rights violations. 
  These rights play an important role in ensuring that such events do not recur.
  

The state has an obligation to ensure that injustices are not erased from the collective memory, and to prevent the development of revisionist ideas. The most frequently employed instruments in this context are extra-judicial commissions of inquiry, also known as truth and reconciliation commissions. They aim to lay bare the administrative machinery that committed, or failed to prevent, the abuses, in order to ensure that they do not recur. In addition, the commissions are responsible with securing evidence for the judiciary. Thus, the majority of measures simultaneously contribute to documentation, and to the creation and preservation of archives.

The right to justice and the duty to investigate and criminally prosecute human rights violations are based on two principles: firstly, any victim can assert their rights and is eligible for fair and effective legal remedy. This includes ensuring that the responsible person(s) will be held accountable and that reparations will be made.

In addition, the state has the obligation to investigate human rights violations. It must arrest and prosecute perpetrators, and punish them, if their guilt is proven.

The right to individual and collective reparation includes individual measures for victims, their relatives and dependants. It comprises, for example, restitution, i.e. the attempt to restore a victim’s previous situation, or compensation for physical or mental injury. It also includes lost opportunities, bodily harm, defamation, legal costs and rehabilitation. Also covered are medical care, including psychological and psychiatric treatment.

Collective measures of reparation include symbolic acts such as commemorative events for the victims, the construction of memorials or the public recognition of its responsibility by the state. By such means, the state can discharge its duty of remembrance and contribute to restoring the victims’ dignity.

In order to prevent the recurrence of injustices, measures are required such as the vetting of officials in public institutions as well as the reform of administrative and legal institutions. This includes:

• disbanding paramilitary armed groups (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration),

• reforming security institutions,

• repealing emergency laws,

• removing officials from office who have been proven in a fair and transparent procedure to be implicated in serious human rights violations, and

• reforming state institutions and laws in accordance with the norms of good governance and the rule of law.