The former rulers are punished for real or imagined crimes, their period of rule is denounced as criminal, and history is rewritten. In these cases, one side violates norms of justice while the other seeks only to enforce them. Whatever the distinctions among the varieties of human rights abuses and undemocratic systems, the proponents of truth commissions argue that simple criminal trials are inadequate to do justice. The truth lays a sounder foundation for future democracy. The search for truth is a search for a common understanding of the past, a new history of the nation.
Defenders compare the truth commission favorably to criminal trials, and the argument is powerful.
Victims' stories are treated with great suspicion by defense attorneys and even by the court at trials, whereas the truth commission gives victims the chance to deliver their narratives to a sympathetic audience. An amnesty process like South Africa's is the closest thing we have yet seen to achieve the goals of both disciplines. There would be no amnesia, no immunity. Instead, the commission could grant amnesty to individuals in exchange for their full and candid testimony. There was testimony about some of the most famous cases in the history of the South African struggle, such as the murder of Steve Biko, and the testimony, especially the words of the white former security officials, presented an account that could not otherwise have been compiled.