Introduction

A significant number of truth commissions have conducted public hearings that were authorized, or alternatively required, by their terms of reference. The South African TRC, which catalyzed the global use of hearings by truth commissions, held several different types of public hearings: victim hearings, amnesty hearings, and special hearings focused on key institutions, themes, or events. This chapter focuses only on victim hearings, and on related reply hearings by implicated persons. Much of this chapter will, nevertheless, be relevant to other types of commission hearings.

Public hearings present an enormous administrative, logistical, and financial challenge for truth commissions. Yet there is an increasing trend in favor of their use because of several potential benefits. Public hearings can help provide a privileged public platform for victims, and thereby serve as an indirect form of acknowledgment and moral restoration for past suffering. When they are broadcast on national television and radio, public hearings can also have an unrivaled impact on public awareness about past abuse. In the most successful cases, they can generate a society-wide debate, and foster greater public sympathy for victims. This can in turn contribute to the process of reconciliation, and help secure public support for subsequent justice, reparation, and reform efforts. In societies with high rates of illiteracy, public hearings can bring the work of the truth commission to the ordinary citizen in a way that no final report can.