Activist Edmund Yakani is urging South Sudan’s Presidency to act swiftly in forming transitional justice institutions and kick-start the process early next year, citing its significance in reconciling and uniting South Sudanese ahead of 2026 elections.

President Kiir assented to the transitional justice bills including Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing, and the Compensation and Reparations Authority bills 2024 on November 11, 2024 along four others.

The Transitional Justice bill provides for the establishment of key institutions, including the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing, the Compensation and Reparation Authority, and the Hybrid Court for South Sudan.

It’s hope that the enactment of the laws will address past injustices and promote reconciliation in the country.

Speaking to Eye Radio yesterday, Yakani stressed the urgency of implementing the law to ensure accountability, truth-seeking, and reparations for victims of conflict.

“So, we are appealing to you as our leaders to make sure us in 2025 to roll out with transitional justice within the framework of the transitional process”, he said.

According to the 2018 peace deal, the unity government shall appoint seven commissioners to the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing – four of whom shall be South Sudanese nationals, including two women. The other three will come from other African countries with at least one of them to be a woman.

The agreement provides that the commissioners, investigators and staff of the CTRH shall be person of high moral character, impartiality and integrity who are independent of any third party while executing their functions.

Yakani said these institutions are vital for building trust and fostering peace among communities.

He also called on the Presidency to prioritize the appointment of competent individuals to lead these bodies.

“… these institutions should not be run by partisan candidates, and the nomination of commissioners for these institutions should undergo proper scrutiny by the parliament to ensure that nobody who is a partisan is running these institutions.

Yakani has stressed the need for the Presidency and African Union to initiate a meeting to nominate three candidates from the African Countries, saying it’s key to commence the justice process as early as in January 2025

“We are aware that African Union is supposed to help us with the three African commissioners, and we hope that his Excellency President, First Vice President, and the Vice Presidents at the presidency level should commission a meeting between the government of South Sudan and African Union to nominate three African candidates for the seat of the three commissioners under the Commission for Truth, Healing and Reconciliation as enshrined in the law.

“In 2025, as early as possible, we need to roll out the transitional justice process and take responsibility of promoting healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, compensation, reparation and making sure that our communities repair the broken social fabric through effective and genuine transitional justice.

Meanwhile, the activist called upon our government and AU to work towards a hybrid court for South Sudan and start with capacity building of legal experts on how to handle cases related to crimes against humanity.

The 2018 peace mandated the African Union to investigates and where necessary prosecute individual bearing responsibility  for violation of international law and applicable South Sudanese law.

The AU is also tasked to provide broad guidelines related to the location of the court, it’s infrastructure, funding mechanisms, enforcement mechanism,, the applicable jurisprudence, number and composition of judges, privileges and immunity of the court personnel, among others