Khampepe Commission into TRC delays to start hearings on Monday

The hearings, which will take place at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg, will see interested parties deliver their opening statements on the first day. 

Announced in May, President Cyril Ramaphosa set up the judicial inquiry to probe claims of deliberate delays in prosecuting apartheid-era crimes three decades after the end of white-minority rule.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), created in 1996, exposed crimes, including murder and torture, carried out during apartheid, but few of these cases have progressed to trial.

Led by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC heard over two years harrowing accounts from hundreds of victims and perpetrators of apartheid-era abuse.

It granted amnesty to 850 people who confessed to their crimes and also recommended prosecution in more than 300 cases.

The announcement came after 25 families of victims and survivors sued Ramaphosa and the government in January over a lack of justice.

They included the son of Fort Calata, among anti-apartheid activists known as the Cradock Four, who were abducted and killed by security police in 1985.

On Monday, the commission will address procedural issues, including whether witnesses may be represented by their own legal counsel, before proceeding to hear oral testimony.

Witnesses expected to testify include Lukhanyo Calata (son of Fort Calata), Thembi Simelane (sister of Nokuthula Simelane), former TRC Commissioners Yasmin Sooka and Dumisa Ntsebeza, former National Directors of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka and Vusi Pikoli, former PCLU head Anton Ackermann, and senior prosecutor Advocate Chris Macadam. 

The Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) stated that it rejected the proposal to utilise the commission to address victims' rights and constitutional damages, arguing that only a court can determine such matters.

"The applicants are very disappointed at the about-turn of the president," FHR said in a statement.

Critics have long alleged a covert agreement between the former white-minority government and the post-apartheid leadership of the African National Congress to prevent prosecutions.

The foundation of the country's last white president, FW de Klerk, suggested in 2021 that prosecutors halted the trials due to an "informal agreement" between the post-apartheid leadership of the African National Congress and the former government.

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