Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC)
Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission Act
As a direct result of 22 years of authoritarian rule, human rights violations were widespread. In most cases, there was no effective investigation and perpetrators have not been brought to justice. On 13 December 2017, the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRC) Act was adopted by the National Assembly and assented to by the President on 13 January 2018.
The TRRC Act provides for the establishment of the historical record of the nature, causes, and extent of violations and abuses of human rights committed during the period July 1994 to January 2017 and to consider the granting of reparation of victims.
The main objectives of the TRRC, pursuant to Section 13 of the Act, are to:
(a) create an impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights from July 1994 to January 2017, in order to
(i) promote healing and reconciliation,
(ii) respond to the needs of the victims,
(iii) address impunity, and
(iv) prevent a repetition of the violations and abuses suffered by making recommendations for the establishment of appropriate preventive mechanisms including institutional and legal reforms;
(b) establish and make known the fate or whereabouts of disappeared victims;
(c) provide victims an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations and abuses suffered; and
(d) grant reparations to victims in appropriate cases.
The President of the Republic of The Gambia, on 15 October 2018 appointed and swore in the 11 Commissioners of the TRRC. The TRRC worked for more than two years and submitted its Final Report with findings and recommendations to President Barrow on 25 November 2021. A month later, government through the Ministry of Justice made the report public on 24 December 2021. As per the TRRC Act, the government has six months to issue a White Paper.
