Juba,
April 3, 2022 – Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) has welcomed calls for public consultations on the establishment of the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing (CTRH) in South Sudan.
On Thursday, the government announced that national public consultations that will inform legislation for the establishment of the CTRH as envisioned in the 2018 peace agreement would be launched on April 5 after a technical committee tasked to prepare for the consultations completes its work.
Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director of CEPO said effective participation of citizens without any form of restrictions is vital in the CTRH establishment.
“Transitional justice is an essential process for transitioning the society from violence to peace, forgiveness, truth telling and healing. Although the process of citizens’ engagement in the transitional justice mechanism was delayed, it is better to have it now than never,” he said.
According to Chapter 5 of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan a Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, a Hybrid Court for South Sudan (HCSS) and a Compensation and Reparation Authority (CRA) must be established to perform these specialized functions before the end of the transitional period.
Yakani said the transitional justice process requires nonrestrictive civic space for genuine engagement when consulting citizens on what they desire.
“Based on this point, we are urging the president to officially declare observation of the freedom of expression by state authorities linked with the transitional process during these public consultations,” he stressed.
The activist said CEPO, through its Transitional Justice Resources Centre (TJRC), would embark on facilitating civic education across the country.
According to the peace agreement, the public consultations are expected to take a period not less than one month prior to the establishment of the CTRH.
The consultations shall ensure that experiences of women, men, girls and boys are sufficiently documented and the findings of such consultations incorporated in the resultant legislation.
