Brussels, 29/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - The EU has a role to play in the period of transition towards rule of law in countries that have been through a conflict or major crisis, the chair of the EP Sub-Committee on Human Rights, Hélène Flautre (Greens/France), said on Monday during a public hearing on “transitional justice”. “The EU must verify the reliability of the strategy set in place in these countries so that transitional justice may be successfully carried out throughout”, she stressed. According to Alex Boraine, founder of the International Centre of Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and former deputy chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the concept of transitional justice is essential in some countries as a step for going from an uncertain order (war, genocide, dictatorship, etc) to a new order, embodied in “a just society”. Societies which are going through a transition period cannot take advantage of international rules which are not universal. Hence the need, said Boraine, for “a holistic approach to transitional justice”, based on five pillars: “accountability”; “truth recovery” which allows the healing process to begin (truth or reconciliation commissions); “reconciliation” (setting up a common memory); “institutional reform”; and “reparations”, with a special place reserved for the victims. On this last point, Esther Mujawayao-Kiener, a therapist in a refugee centre in Germany and survivor of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, stressed that “in Rwanda, the repetition of events and impunity have been internalised by the perpetrators and the victims. (…) It is very important, for a victim, for the crime to be named and recognised for what it is”. With the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), “I have to recognise that at least the crime has been named”, she said. The President of the Research and Documentation Centre of Sarajevo Mirsad Tokaca remarked that “all the victims wonder why there was a genocide”, hence, he said, the importance of gathering documents to explain what happened. He added, “We desperately need EU assistance to transform our institutions, in combating impunity”, because the criminals have not yet all been imprisoned and some even have responsibilities that run alongside the state apparatus. On Middle East and North African countries, Hanny Megally, the director of the ICTJ programme for the area expressed his optimism, noting “signs of change and development” in the regimes of these countries, as can be seen, for example, in the setting up of truth commissions in Morocco and Bahrain. In these regions, “the EU can act on the ruling politicians,” said Mr Megally. In conclusion, Michael Matthiessen Javier Solana's personal representative on human rights, said that in June the EU Council had begun work on the way that transitional justice can be used in the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).