Truth team's public hearings to begin November

The Road to Truth, Justice and Reconciliation

• August 2010 - January 2011 - TJRC collects statements, memoranda and interviews
• September 2010 - August 2011 - Community dialogues including inter-religious and inter-ethnic
• February 2011 - August 2011 - Individual, Institutional and Thematic Hearings
• September 2011 - November 2011 - Preparation and presentation of final report and recommendations

The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission begins public hearings in November, a year before it presents its final report.

The first sessions will be held in Mount Elgon, where the commission has already took statements from witnesses in the months of May and June.

And beginning from this month the truth commission led by Bethuel Kiplagat will start collecting statements from the public in an exercise expected to run until January next year.

According to a timetable presented by the Chief Executive Officer Ms Patricia Nyaundi, the commission expects to present its report and recommendations by November next year.

“The Commission has defined for itself three milestones in the delivery of its mandate namely statement taking, hearings and the final report,” said Ms Nyaundi

She added that they will conduct hearings based on individuals, institutions and events. Some of the hearing, she explained, will be done in camera due to their sensitivity.

“We will, for instance, have hearings revolving around the Prisons’ department, the Judiciary, the police and even the media; in the case of prisons we will use former prisoners to give us the account of the violations meted against them while behind bars,” said Ms Nyaundi.

She added that due to time limitations, the commission will conduct individual hearings at the regional level followed by the institutional and thematic ones outside of Nairobi.

“You will then find that we will be more based in Nairobi as we approach November next year when we expect to present our reports and recommendation,” said Ms Nyaundi.

The commission will next week train 300 officials who will be involved in taking statements from witnesses in other parts of the country.

“Those statements on receipt by the commission will then be processed and then the investigation team will follow up on them (statements) to confirm their veracity and selecting cases that will proceed for hearings,” said Ms Nyaundi.

The TJRC has also clustered itself into five committees; human rights violations committee, the reparations and rehabilitation committee, the reconciliation committee, the amnesty committee and the administrative committee.

Mr Kiplagat said the new constitution provides the framework for transitional justice but urged Kenyans to push for the rest of the Agenda 4 refoms.

“Although the new constitution promises that gross violations will not recur, those who suffered violations and historical injustice still need justice. The new constitution provides only a broad framework for institutional reforms. The TJRC will propose more concrete and specific ways to reform our institutions implicated in gross violations,” he said.

The TJRC has the elephantine task of looking into historical injustices dating back to 1963.