Damages should be paid to victims of apartheid-era violations: Maduna – SABC News – Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa’s news leader.
Former Justice Minister Penuell Maduna says that government should pay constitutional damages to the families and victims of apartheid-era human rights violations.
He was speaking on day 83 of the public hearings of the TRC Cases Inquiry in Newtown, Johannesburg on Tuesday.
The Judicial Commission chaired by Justice Sisi Khampepe is expected to determine if reparations should be paid to survivors and their families as part of its Terms of Reference.
Maduna says the democratic state is obliged to take on the responsibilities of its predecessor.
“State succession is that we assumed even the responsibilities of the Gideon Niewoods and all such evil people I am saying this because I also have relatives that have expectations that the state will one day step forward and help them, I worked with young comrades who can’t find jobs today because they can’t work, they are in wheelchairs. They were shot as part of uMkhonto weSizwe the real Umkhonto, they have no homes they have no food and I don’t know what to say to those comrades.”
Maduna defended the establishment of an interdepartmental Amnesty Task Team (ATT) by then-Director General of Justice Vusi Pikoli in February 2004.
Under cross examination by families of victims of apartheid at the TRC Cases Inquiry, Maduna insisted the ATT was not aimed at interfering in the work of the NPA. This is despite the ATT ultimately drafting an amended prosecutions policy for the TRC cases, which some within the NPA saw as bestowing apartheid perpetrators with a back door amnesty.
“It was not about protecting people at all, how do we get to the information etc. There were people who were armed with tons of information who knew what was happening it this country and who knew what they themselves had done who instructed them to do it etc. There is none in the NPA who could put all that information together it was an impossible task.”
The ATT’s implementation body, the Interdepartmental Task Team (ITT), ceased meeting in early 2007 after Pikoli, then the NDPP, complained that it sought to infringe on the NPA’s prosecutorial independence.
Video: TRC Cases | Khampepe Commission of Inquiry: 08 September 2026