TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE: HUMAN AND POLITICAL EXPERIENCE INTERACTING WITH HISTORY, PRELUDE TO BREAK WITH PAST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS - INTERNATIONAL MEETING

The participants of the international meeting on “Right to truth, reparation and institutional reform: What progress and what prospects for transitional justice?” underlined that transitional justice, “as a human and political experience that forms part of history and interacts therewith, is a prelude to break with the past gross human rights violations and build the future on the basis of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights”.

Organized by the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) in partnership with Driss Benzekri Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy and the CDG Foundation on January 14 – 15, 2013 at the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Rabat, this meeting sought to take stock of the implementation of the recommendations issued by the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (IER) in Morocco, review the progress made worldwide in transitional justice, identify lessons learned and best practices, and examine the prospects of ongoing experiences in transitional justice.

At a time when several countries in the Arab region are going through similar experiences, the participants considered that “any experience of transitional justice would be doomed to failure unless it results in comprehensive, and sometimes radical, political, institutional, constitutional and legal reforms”. Some of them noted that the involvement of civil society in the process of transitional justice plays a fundamental role in its success.

Having highlighted “the absence of a ready-made recipe for transitional justice”, the participants said that the social context specificities should not preclude openness to other experiences and benefiting from their outcomes, especially in terms of establishing truth, reparation, gender approach and recommendations.

In a speech at the opening of the meeting, Mr. Driss El Yazami, CNDH President, considered that entrusting the task of monitoring the implementation of the IER recommendations solely to the previous Advisory Council on Human Rights, replaced by the National Human Rights Council, as an independent national institution with moral authority in human rights, has greatly contributed to accelerating the pace of implementing those recommendations.

Indeed, in no more than six years 8,500 applications for reparation were settled and 17,966 victims and rights holders received financial compensation, out of more than 20,000 applications submitted to the Equity and Reconciliation Commission. Moreover, 15,187 victims and rights holders benefited from medical coverage, 1,268 were socially reintegrated, and 540 victims had their administrative and financial situation settled.

Concerning community reparation, the Council has monitored the implementation of 130 projects in 13 provinces of Morocco. These projects focused on four main areas, namely capacity building for local stakeholders, preserving memory, improving the living conditions of the inhabitants, and promoting the situation of women and children.

Mr. El Yazami also shed light on a number of projects completed or underway as part of preserving archive, history and memory and implementing recommendations on institutional and legislative reforms, which culminated in the adoption of the new Constitution. The latter enshrines the commitment of the Kingdom of Morocco to implement human rights, as they are universally recognized, accords supremacy to international treaties over national law, prohibits all forms of discrimination, torture and all grave violations of human rights.
Many national and international activists and experts in transitional justice as well as a host of international personalities, including Ms. Tawakkul Karman, Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mr. Pablo de Greiff, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non- recurrence, Mr. Michel Tubiana, president of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network Rights, Mr. Sidiki Kaba, honorary president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) took part in this international meeting.

The participants discussed several transitional justice-related topics, including the mandate of truth commissions (creation, temporal jurisdiction and specific jurisdiction, powers, types of violations processed, main activities, etc.), implementation strategies for truth and justice (judicial and extrajudicial procedures, working techniques for hearings, testimonies and archives consultation, role of victims and NGOs and their relations with truth commissions, etc.). They also dealt with the issue of individual and community reparation policies, and the outcome of recommendations (types of recommendations, monitoring mechanisms, effectiveness of implementation, etc.).