Pushing boundaries for justice
BIGGER PICTURE: Civil society initiatives have broadened investigation and documentation processes. A file picture of a protester during a people’s tribunal on torture in Bangalore. Photo: Bhagya Prakash. K
People’s tribunals are more effective than official commissions of inquiry in the investigation of rights violations and in formulating effective redress mechanisms
When the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) held its latest hearing in New York city between October 6 to 7, it once again affirmed that peace was impossible without justice. A civil society initiative, this tribunal documents and exposes the violations of international human rights law against the Palestinian people. Similar sessions have already been held in Barcelona, Cape Town and London on issues ranging from corporate complicity in the Israeli Occupation to the crime of apartheid.
Though the recommendations of the Russell Tribunal are not legally binding on the parties to the conflict, they have played an important role in laying out the context and documenting the evidence of violations of international law by the Israeli government. With a jury of eminent persons such as Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a Nobel Peace Laureate, Alice Walker, American author and poet, and Yasmin Sooka of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and now with the Foundation for Human Rights, the findings of such a tribunal will be hard to ignore. This high profile People’s Tribunal on Palestine has also initiated a discussion regarding the role played by such unofficial or civil society processes not only to document and highlight serious human rights violations but also provide a larger basis for action against such crimes.
In South Asia
South Asia, particularly India has a tradition of official commissions of inquiry, generally constituted to investigate communal violence, massacres and other forms of human rights violations. The reports of these commissions of inquiries have, however, repeatedly failed to break away from the legal formalism associated with investigating and reporting crimes by quasi-judicial bodies. Whether it is the Bhagalpur Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate the communal riots of 1989 or the Tewary Commission to establish the violations that occurred during the Nellie massacre in Assam in 1983, the government has avoided implementing even the mild recommendations of these official commissions. The government has not even made these reports public for a debate. Besides, these official commissions of inquiry do not systematically record the testimonies of victims or their families and their demands in their final reports.
With the recent developments in transitional justice and international law, there is growing recognition that victims and their testimonies must be central while ensuring justice for gross human rights violations. Article 68 (3) of the Rome Statute states that the Court shall permit the views and concerns of victims to be presented and considered at stages of the proceedings. This is why people’s tribunals become important.
Unlike governmental commissions of inquiries, these civil society initiatives have broadened the investigation and documentation processes by drawing from mass movements as well as incorporating testimonies of victims of human rights violations themselves. Moreover, they present final reports that not only reflect the legal violations but also the political or social contexts that may have allowed for these violations to happen. For instance, in conflict situations, torture or extrajudicial killings forms a part of the human rights discourse. However, the impact of militarisation, unfair land acquisition or the psychosocial aspects may not get adequate attention. A people’s tribunal or civil society-led processes can contribute to understanding the enabling courses for human rights violations and thus assist in formulating an effective mechanism for redressal.
Even though these civil society initiatives cannot hold perpetrators accountable, they create an exhaustive documentation that can be used for subsequent legal processes. In conflict or post-conflict situations, civil society tribunals add to the existing documentation on violations of civil political rights such as torture, collective punishment, or enforced disappearances, particularly when no genuine official commissions are involved in investigation and documentation. Given the lack of accountability for serious crimes in Sri Lanka, in January 2010, a Permanent People’s Tribunal conducted investigations, heard first-hand testimonies, and held that the Sri Lankan government was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly during the last stages of the war against the LTTE in 2009.
Communal violence
Moreover, people’s tribunals can also help to disseminate the truth about injustice or ongoing human rights violations at the time. The Iraq war and the subsequent World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) organised by the “international civil society” is an example. The moral indictment by the WTI through its public hearings helped to substantiate the claims of gross violations and culpability of the American coalition forces in Iraq.
In situations of communal violence, people’s tribunals can push the boundaries of human rights advocacy and justice. In fact, a Concerned Citizens Tribunal was formed even after the Gujarat pogrom, which documented exhaustively transgressions of international human rights and criminal law committed during the riots in 2002, and made concrete proposals to provide justice to the victims and prevent a recurrence of such violence.
Mode of resistance
Finally, a people’s tribunal can also act as a mode of organised or symbolic resistance. A recent tribunal on fabricated cases was organised in September 2012 by an umbrella of civil society groups in Delhi. It heard testimonies from victims and family members of persons from Manipur, Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and other States besides lawyers, journalists and activists who have been incarcerated for years without sufficient evidence of their involvement. People’s tribunals or oral histories can be effective in bringing out these issues and confronting them headlong in situations where State-led official processes are either unwilling or unable to do so.
The history of people’s tribunals in India and elsewhere is replete with interesting and important ways in which they have contributed to advancing agendas of truth, justice and reparations.
When the RToP convened in New York to hear the testimonies of violations of international law and the rights of the Palestinians, its resonance was felt across the Atlantic to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. If Israel or its supporters, especially the United States, choose to take note of the recommendations this time around, it will provide essential guidance to move forward towards a permanent peace.
At home, the government too needs to engage rather than ignore the legal and policy recommendations of people’s tribunals and the civil society processes because it would only help to deepen and institutionalise justice. For these people’s tribunals are in some ways the upholder of our collective consciousness.
(Warisha Farasat, a lawyer, is currently working with the Centre of Equity Studies on issues of justice and reparations for victims of communal violence in India.)
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