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The establishment of truth;
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Acknowledgement;
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Justice, compensation and reparations;
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National healing and reconciliation;
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Non-repetition (never again);
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Gender sensitive;
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Transparency and accountability; and
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Nation building and reintegration.
Just after the adoption of these principles, Zimbabwe’s political leadership entered into
a coalition government from 2009 to 2013. This period saw a number of reforms that
are key to Zimbabwe’s transitional justice process most importantly the constitutional
reform process that saw the signing of a new Constitution for Zimbabwe into law by
President Robert Mugabe on 22 May 2013.
During that same period, transitional justice stakeholders in search of redress
undertook a number of initiatives for victims of human rights violations. These
included litigation in the courts of law, rehabilitation of victims by organisations
offering psychosocial support and proposals for the reform of key institutions.
In October 2012 and 2013, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum organized the
International Conferences on Transitional Justice, bringing together stakeholders from
civil society, churches, business, government, academia and international experts to
deliberate on how best to achieve justice and give redress to victims of past violations.
Both conferences produced a key recommendation on the establishment of a Working
Group, whose framework would include to work towards the implementation of
various transitional justice recommendations. Participants stated that the members of
the working group should be chosen through a transparent process considering the
importance of objectivity, integrity and credibility (ICTJ I Report, 2012:125 and ICTJ II
Report: 2).
It is important here to note that the Second Conference was convened after the signing
of the new Constitution into law and its theme focused mainly on independent
Commissions hence the deliberations were focused on the upcoming work of the
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