Equity, Mercy, Forgiveness: Interpreting Amnesty within the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Morality and the Meaning of Life)

The most prominent and troubling criticism of the South African TRC has been that amnesty amounts to a sacrifice of individual justice. Whilst this criticism is taken seriously, the focus of this book is on equity, mercy and forgiveness - three crucial possibilities for making moral sense of the unique amnesty process within the South African TRC. In building up this interpretation the author examines closely some of his personal experiences as a former researcher within the TRC. His search for words to articulate the deeper moral meanings of the amnesty part of the TRC process is developed through a careful analysis of a range of accessible examples from this process. By thus entering in a hermeneutic dialogue with the "sacrifice of justice" criticism this book not only contributes to the unfinished business of morally interpreting a particular TRC process, it also helps to clarify constructive options for other nations struggling to deal with painful pasts.