Truth Commissions as processes: encouraging civil society-state re-engagement

Are truth commissions (TCs) processes or events? The question is important as it determines how the various groups engage with each other and with the commission itself. If they are events the engagement is one-time whereas, if they are processes, engagement could potentially be sustained over time. I argue TCs are processes with three different chronological stages that generate accountability relationships among different affected groups at the state-societal level. Before their establishment, TCs generate vertical accountability relationships between victims and broader civil society and the governing regime. During the period between their establishment and the release of the final report, TCs hold state agencies horizontally accountable. In their final reports, TCs put forward recommendations capable of generating horizontal accountability between the governing regime and the state agencies towards which the recommendations are directed, and vertical accountability as civil society pushes the governing regime to implement these recommendations. I sustain that it is through vertical accountability relationships that TCs have potentially the ability to promote conflict transformation as it connects the grass-root to the high political level. In this regard, I present the 1990 Mallik commission of inquiry in Nepal as a case study.