The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is to seek a High Court ruling on the legality of a controversial decision by its amnesty committee - which functions as an autonomous institution - to grant blanket amnesty to 37 high-ranking African National Congress officials, including the Deputy President, Mr Thabo Mbeki.
The resolution, announced yesterday, follows a "beginning-ofyear retreat" on Robben Island by members of the TRC, as the commission is popularly known. The amnesty committee's decision has been vigorously criticised by opposition parties for being in contravention of the law establishing the TRC, the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, and for creating the impression there is one set of rules for ANC leaders and another for the political leaders who opposed them during the armed struggle for South Africa.
According to opposition leaders and their legal advisers, the law requires applicants for amnesty to detail the actions for which they are seeking amnesty, a requirement which the 37 ANC officials failed to fulfil. Their applications simply ask for a general amnesty for unspecified offences.
As Ms Dene Smuts of the Democratic Party has put it, the ANC leaders applied for amnesty for nothing in particular and everything in general, a request which, in her view, the amnesty committee was not empowered to grant.
The TRC response to these criticisms has been cautious: it prudently sought the opinion of a senior barrister, who reportedly advised it that the amnesty committee's decision could be successfully challenged in the High Court.
Rather than wait for a court challenge from either the Democratic or National Party, the TRC seems to have decided on pre-emptive action by seeking the court ruling, even at the potential cost of exposing the amnesty committee decision, whose members include at least two judges, to a humiliating repudiation.