## Facts

- A statute created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and empowered its Amnesty Committee to grant amnesty for certain pre-transition acts.
- The statute authorized amnesty for acts, omissions, or offenses associated with a political objective, committed before 6 December 1993, and accompanied by full disclosure of relevant facts.
- A grant of amnesty barred criminal prosecution and extinguished civil liability for the perpetrator and any vicariously liable party, including the state.
- A political organization and relatives of persons killed during the apartheid era sought direct access to invalidate the amnesty provision, claiming it deprived them of criminal and civil remedies.

## Issues

1. Whether the statutory amnesty provision, which extinguished criminal and civil liability (including vicarious liability), violated the constitutional right to have justiciable disputes decided by a court or other independent forum.
2. If the provision limited that right, whether the limitation was constitutionally permitted in light of the constitution’s “National Unity and Reconciliation” commitment and the general limitations clause.
3. Whether the amnesty scheme conflicted with binding international-law duties to prosecute serious human rights violations.

## Decision

- The court granted direct access and reached the merits.
- The court held the amnesty provision constitutional and dismissed the application.
- The court accepted the provision limited the right of access to court, but found the limitation constitutionally authorized by the constitution’s reconciliation mandate and therefore permissible.
- The court held the scheme did not breach South Africa’s binding international-law obligations in the circumstances presented.
- The court emphasized amnesty was conditional, requiring full disclosure, a political-objective nexus, and satisfaction of a temporal cutoff.

## Legal Principles

- A statute may limit a constitutional right where the constitution itself authorizes such a limitation as part of the constitutional settlement, or where justified under a general limitations clause.
- Constitutional text committing the state to national unity and reconciliation may authorize an amnesty mechanism as a transitional instrument, even when it forecloses criminal prosecution and civil claims.
- Extinguishing civil liability, including vicarious liability of the state, may be constitutionally permissible where it is tied to a disclosure-based amnesty designed to secure truth about past abuses and support reconciliation.
- Reparations for past wrongs may be structured through public processes and legislative design rather than solely through private damages litigation, taking account of state resources and competing public demands.
- International humanitarian law does not necessarily impose a universal duty to prosecute all serious violations arising from internal political conflict; after hostilities, relevant instruments may allow or encourage amnesty in certain non-international contexts.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the TRC’s conditional amnesty scheme, ruling that the constitution’s commitment to national unity and reconciliation authorized limiting access to courts by extinguishing criminal and civil liability for qualifying politically motivated acts, and that the scheme was not contrary to binding international-law obligations in the context of South Africa’s transition.


Azanian Peoples Org. v. President of the Republic of S. Afr., 1996 (4) S. Afr. L. Rep. 671 (Const. Ct.)