Justice and reconciliation A 1998 study by South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation & the Khulumani Support Group, which surveyed several hundred victims of human rights abuse during the Apartheid era, found that most felt that the TRC had failed to achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities. Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse. The TRC’s mandate was limited to gross violations of human rights, defined in terms of physical or mental harm to an individual. The likes of Madeleine Fullard, Mamphela Ramphele and Beth Goldblatt have argued that this definition excludes systemic crimes such as forced removals, closing down schools and pass arrests. As a result of the TRC's shortcomings and the unaddressed injuries of many victims, victims' groups, together with NGOs and lawyers, took various TRC-related matters to South African and US courts in the early 2000s.
Amnesty Many black South Africans were angered at amnesty being granted for human rights abuses committed by the apartheid government. The BBC described criticisms of the amnesty system as stemming from a "basic misunderstanding" about the TRC's mandate, which was to
uncover the truth about past abuse, using amnesty as a mechanism, rather than to
punish past crimes. Critics of the TRC dispute this, saying that their position is not a misunderstanding but a rejection of the TRC's mandate. Among the highest-profile criticisms came from the family of prominent anti-apartheid activist
Steve Biko, who was killed by the security police, and whose story was featured in the film
Cry Freedom. Biko's family described the TRC as a "vehicle for political expediency", which "robbed" them of their right to justice. The family opposed amnesty for his killers on these grounds and brought a legal action in South Africa's highest court, arguing that the TRC was unconstitutional. When the TRC drew to a close there were more than 300 cases of gross violations of human rights that remained unresolved. These cases concerned cases of abduction, disappearances, torture and murder and were committed by perpetrators who were not granted amnesty or who had not testified before the Commission. These cases were handed to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for investigation and prosecution. Due to political interference in the work of the NPA, investigations were delayed and obstructed for twenty years. In 2017, after years of struggle on the part of the family of anti-apartheid activist, Ahmed Timol, the inquest into his death was re-opened. Timol died in police detention in 1971. The police claimed he had committed suicide but his family never accepted this finding. In a landmark verdict, on 12 October 2019, Judge Mothle overturned the finding of the apartheid-era inquest and found that Timol was murdered by the Security Police at John Vorster Square Police Station in Johannesburg. This case opened the way for the re-opening of further inquests.
Accountability for high-profile perpetrators Former apartheid
State President P.W. Botha defied a subpoena to appear before the commission, calling it a "circus". His defiance resulted in a fine and suspended sentence, but these were overturned on appeal. While former president
F. W. de Klerk appeared before the commission and reiterated his apology for the suffering caused by apartheid, local reports at the time noted that he failed to accept that the former NP government's policies had given security forces a "licence to kill", although this was evidenced to him personally in different ways. de Klerk's appearance drove the chairman
Archbishop Desmond Tutu almost to tears.
Reparations The Reparations and Rehabilitations Committee recommended policy for how to assist victims (including family members and dependents) based on findings of other two committees. Several forms of reparations were recommended: urgent interim payments, individual reparation grants, symbolic reparation and legal administrative measures, community rehabilitation and institutional reforms. Wendy Orr, a co-chair of the Reparations and Rehabilitations Committee, has stated that delayed payments to victims in the reparations program are the most damaging aspect of the TRC’s work: Urgent Interim Reparations were made available in 2003, five years after the Commission recommended them to the government. Reparation grants were similarly delayed, and below the sum recommended by the TRC. As of December 2025, these protests are ongoing.
Unequal influence Playwright Jane Taylor, responsible for the acclaimed
Ubu and the Truth Commission, found fault with the commission's lopsided influence: The TRC is unquestionably a monumental process, the consequences of which will take years to unravel. For all its pervasive weight, however, it infiltrates our culture asymmetrically, unevenly across multiple sectors. Its place in small rural communities, for example, when it establishes itself in a local church hall, and absorbs substantial numbers of the population, is very different from its situation in large urban centres, where its presence is marginalised by other social and economic activities.
Testimony translation Another dilemma facing the TRC was how to do justice to the testimonials of those witnesses for whom translation was necessary. It was believed that, with the great discrepancy between the emotions of the witnesses and those translating them, much of the impact was lost in interlingual rendition. A briefly tried solution was to have the translators mimic the witnesses' emotions, but this proved disastrous and was quickly scrapped. ==See also==