Barely five months after the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) started receiving and investigating complaints of human rights abuses committed under past military and unconstitutional regimes, the Commission is set to start public hearings on Tuesday January 14, 2003.

The Investigations Department of the Commission has been serving notices to both complainants and alleged perpetrators to appear before the Commission on the hearing days.

Unlike the normal court hearings, by law, the hearings of the NRC are not to identify and punish offenders, but to ascertain the veracity of the complaints and recommend reparation and restitution by government for victims.

Established by a Parliamentary Act, Act 511, 2002, the Commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice S.E. Amua Sekyi, has since September 3, 2002 received a total of 2,800 complaints from individuals, families and groups through its headquarters and five zonal offices around the country. It has fully investigated 100 of them, which are slated for hearing.

The Commission has set aside Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday for its public hearings and has apportioned 15 cases to be heard on each of these days. The number may go up in due course.

The law affords the Commission a maximum of one year three months to completely carry out their work and submit a report to the government for further action. It needs a total of five million US dollars for its work.

Over the past five months the Commission has received a total of 917, 000 dollars in instalments, much of which has been spent for administrative activities, investigations, logistics, staff remuneration and the establishment of five zonal offices.

The law also enjoins the Commission to focus on only abuses, which occurred under past military and other unconstitutional regimes between March 7, 1957 and January 6, 1993

The limitation of the scope of the NRC by law to hear cases of abuse under military and unconstitutional regimes raised eyebrows over the genuineness of the whole process and whether there had not been similar abuses under some past constitutional governments.

The argument initiated by the Minority in Parliament led by MPs of the main opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), informed a clause in the law, which provides a window of opportunity for such cases to be brought to the Commission for discussion.

Most of the complaints so far received include unlawful seizure and/or destruction of properties, unlawful detention, torture, unlawful arrest of relatives, physical abuse and murder of relatives. The Independence Square in Accra temporarily was the headquarters of the Commission for the five months preceding the public hearings. The Commission would be at its permanent premises, the Old Parliament House in Accra.

The public hearings were originally scheduled for October, 2002 and later changed to after November 25, 2002, because renovation of the chamber of the Old Parliament House had not been completed.

The hearings would be preceded by an opening ceremony. Attendance of the opening ceremony is strictly by invitation but the public would be allowed to be present at the hearings. Dr. Alex Borraine, Deputy Chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and founder of the International Centre for Transitional Justice in New York, USA, would be present to witness the opening ceremony.