20 years after the TRC: Are we any the better?
Posted: 18 August, 2016 Filed under: Thabang Mokgatle | Tags: African Charter on Democracy, Amnesty Committee, apartheid, conflict, Constitutional Court of Uganda, Desmond Tutu, El Salvador, Human Rights Violations Committee, justice, Khulumani Support Group, maximalists, minimalists, Mpho Tutu, Patricia Campbell, peace, pragmatics, rainbow nation, reconciliation, Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee, retribution, rule of law, social intervention, South Africa, survivors, TRC, truth, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Tshepo Madlingozi, victims 3 Comments 
Author: Thabang Mokgatle
Candidate Attorney, Rushmere Noach Incorporated, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
“We are looking to maintain not retribution but reparation; we are seeking room for humanity rather than revenge”
– Desmond Tutu, First hearing of the TRC in April 1996
15 April 2016 marked the twentieth anniversary since the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) first commenced in South Africa. In reflecting on the occasion, the words of Desmond Tutu above quoted have unveiled two pertinent questions: Did post-apartheid South Africa, in 1996, require a moment for justice or for reconciliation? Would the pursuit of the former in the first instance, not have led to the achievement of the latter? There is a growing sense that in prioritising the ‘rainbow nation’, the TRC substantially undermined the realisation of justice (institutional justice through the court system). Victims of apartheid-era crimes have supposedly been short-changed, leaving much to be desired since the TRC first convened.
The imminent mass exodus from the ICC by African member states: A turning point for justice in Africa?
Posted: 26 May, 2016 Filed under: Thabang Mokgatle | Tags: ACJ, African Court of Justice, Day in Support of Victims of Torture, domestic courts, EAC, Extraordinary African Chambers, Habré trial, human rights treaties, ICC, International Criminal Court, Kenya, loss of lives, post-election ethnic violence, President Uhuru Kenyatta, Senegal, torture, universal jurisdiction 2 Comments Author: Thabang Mokgatle
Candidate Attorney, Rushmere Noach Incorporated, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
After several months of reading headlines, scholarly articles and opinion pieces about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its alleged anti-Africa agenda, news that Senegal had taken a decision to prosecute former Chadian leader Hissène Habré for, amongst others, crimes against humanity was welcomed.
Implementing the international law principle of universal jurisdiction, the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) were opened in Senegal in 2013, giving the domestic courts of the country the authority to try the former leader for war crimes committed in Chad from 1982 to 1990. Universal Jurisdiction, and particularly the jurisdiction of the EAC allows for the African member State to prosecute persons responsible for international crimes, irrespective of whether they are a former or sitting Head of State. As Thulasizwe Simelane of ENCA News aptly puts it, the trial is “‘one small step for a country (Senegal) and one giant leap for the continent” .The move is indeed revolutionary for Africa. Revolutionary because one need only refer to media headlines to deduce that the gripe African leaders have with the ICC is underscored by its persistent ‘targeting’ of African leaders in office.
AfricLaw 