ABSTRACT
A limitation of truth commissions that have only a few years of existence is that many of the worst affected victims will be afraid to come forward or not ready to do so during those few years. One option is a permanent Truth and Reconciliation Commission that keeps its doors open to victim testimony in perpetuity. When all the perpetrators and victims had died, it would become a museum to house the archives and artefacts it has collected and to educate future generations about the suffering and resilience of those victimised. Another challenge it could meet is scaling up restorative justice. Even well-funded commissions such as that of Timor-Leste provide only a tiny proportion of the victims who would like some form of restorative justice the opportunity for it. A permanent commission could be mandated to achieve continuous improvement in the longue durée in improving access to transitional justice. The Commission would maintain records on how many victims had received different kinds of justice and how satisfied they were with the justice they received. These data should be independently collected so CEOs of the Commission can be evaluated according to how successful the society had been in improving justice indicators during their watch. Many other indicators could be measured, from IDPs resettled, mines cleared, buildings rebuilt, education of child soldiers, to ethnic and religious discrimination and equality measures. Put another way, this is a proposal to scale up restorative justice and other forms of transitional justice by mandating a permanent commission to invest in management and cultural change to continuously improve transitional justice.
