Allan Ryan on Trials and Truth Commissions
Allan Ryan is the former director, Office of
Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice. In this clip from a
Facing History and Ourselves presentation, Ryan compares and contrasts
trials and truth commissions.
Transcript:
"The entire process of trials...takes place in
public so that the people cannot only know, but judge for themselves,
what has happened and whether it is being dealt with fairly. And
because the evidence is recorded, and because the judgment must explain
the reasons for its conclusions, the truth can be tested and retested
over generations....
"Trials and judgment are the only processes in a democratic society that can punish the guilty. A truth commission can, like a trial, give voice to the witnesses and victims, but it cannot condemn the guilty to punishment-that is the unique office of the trial. The trial and the judgment represent the awesome power of the law to vindicate and to renew itself. No society that is committed to justice under law can have one without the other. If the law is real it must be taken seriously. It must be enforced when it is violated. Trials and judgments provide an essential means by which we make the law real.
"Trials have other qualities, too, that they share with Truth Commissions and other less formal procedures. A trial educates. A trial can give expression to the horror of the crime and the pain of the victim. A trial and a judgment can be the beginning of reconciliation, for there can be no reconciliation without justice.
"All of these things are useful and healthy consequences of a trial, but they are not its purpose. The only purpose of a trial is to hear and weigh the evidence to pronounce the guilt or innocence of the accused, and to punish the guilty. Those things no other agency of our society can do."
"Trials and judgment are the only processes in a democratic society that can punish the guilty. A truth commission can, like a trial, give voice to the witnesses and victims, but it cannot condemn the guilty to punishment-that is the unique office of the trial. The trial and the judgment represent the awesome power of the law to vindicate and to renew itself. No society that is committed to justice under law can have one without the other. If the law is real it must be taken seriously. It must be enforced when it is violated. Trials and judgments provide an essential means by which we make the law real.
"Trials have other qualities, too, that they share with Truth Commissions and other less formal procedures. A trial educates. A trial can give expression to the horror of the crime and the pain of the victim. A trial and a judgment can be the beginning of reconciliation, for there can be no reconciliation without justice.
"All of these things are useful and healthy consequences of a trial, but they are not its purpose. The only purpose of a trial is to hear and weigh the evidence to pronounce the guilt or innocence of the accused, and to punish the guilty. Those things no other agency of our society can do."
Date filmed:
Apr 10 1997 
