The South African police and the Truth Commission

Abstract

In 1994, a new national police service — the South African Police Service (SAPS) — was created; largely made up of the personnel of the eleven former apartheid police forces, with their appalling record of abusive and biased policing. By 1996, when the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) began operating, police reform was well under way: new policing legislation, international change management assistance, new training programmes — emphasizing human rights and appropriate use of force — and a new police leadership.

The South African TRC combined a form of truth-telling about abuses committed during the previous apartheid era — notably those committed by the police — with a controversial amnesty (immunity from prosecution) for those abusers who chose to come forward and confess. Despite the strong evidence about apartheid policing that the TRC was able to amass through this dual approach, the Commission's final recommendations on police reform were weak and inarticulate. The TRC had failed to keep abreast of developments in police transformation in the period from 1994 to 1998, and was unable to effectively tackle the legacy of apartheid policing which permeated the new police organisation.

This article concludes that the TRC failed to impact on the process of police reform in South Africa; and that a key symbolic moment in the transformation of policing in South Africa was lost. Despite these failures, it remains to be seen whether the TRC will have longer-term, less-tangible effects on police reform, related to the notion of police accountability and to the future ethical climate within the police organization.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• police reform
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• amnesty
• gross human rights violations
• security sector reform (SSR)
• transitional justice