Independent fact finding commissions are not normally required to publish a notice in the Government Gazette announcing an investigation into any dispute or conflict. It may however be useful for purposes of soliciting inputs from the public and interested parties for the commission to make necessary invitations but this should not be a requirement at law unless grave injustice may otherwise occur. The Commission must therefore have the discretion to publicly announce the launching of an investigation if it so desires. 7.0 Disclosure, Preservation and Access to Information 7.1. Confidentiality Section 9 (5) prevents disclosure of information disclosed to the Commission except under certain circumstances. This section must be expanded to make it clear that the law seeks to protect the confidentiality of the information during the work of the Commission. It must then also protect other categories of information or evidence that should not be disclosed which includes identities and personal information of underage witnesses and victims; and victims of sexual violations. Adult victims of sexual violations should be allowed to decide whether they wish to testify publicly, after counselling. A new section must be added here to effect this principle. 7.2. Use of Information for Judicial Proceedings Under the ground of exception to disclosure, an additional ground must be added after 9 (5) (c) which states, “in judicial proceedings before a competent court.” Without this addition, this will make it impossible for persons affected by violations revealed during the commission’s work to pursue other remedies since there will be an embargo on any information which would have been placed before the Commission. Moreover, there is need for clear guidelines not only on non-disclosure but also on disclosure as truth recovery is part of the mandate of the Commission. Whatever information is recovered by the Commission must remain useful for history, archival and pursuit of other formal and nonformal remedies. 7.3. Preservation and Access to Records of the Commission Section 15 (7) of the NPRC Bill obliges the NPRC publish its reports after 30 days from the day the Minister is expected to have presented the report before Parliament. Section 15 (8) provides that the Commission shall ensure that the rest of the information pertaining to the Commission's business becomes accessible to the public eighteen months after the year to which the information relates. This is an improvement from the previous old NPRC Bill. However, many gaps still exist which need to be filled. There is need for section to be added to the NPRC Bill to provide for how it will access records that are necessary for its work. This section can be worded as follows; 11 NTJWG Analysis of the NPRC Bill, March 2017

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