Brazil Asked to Shed Light on Past Crimes

The Open Society Justice Initiative has filed an amicus curiae brief to the Inter-American Court in the case of Gomes Lund v. Brazil, which challenges Brazil's 1979 amnesty laws prohibiting any prosecutions for “political offenses” committed during the former military dictatorship. The Justice Initiative is arguing that there is a legally enforceable right to the truth for both the victims of human rights violations and for society as a whole.

The case relates to a small guerrilla movement of students and workers that emerged from the Araguaia River region in Brazil in 1972, seeking to foment a popular uprising to overthrow the military dictatorship that had been in power since 1964. Over the next two years, the Brazilian army brutally suppressed the movement, arresting and torturing members. More than 60 disappeared, their fate still unknown.

With the restoration of democracy in 1982, legal proceedings were brought by the families of the disappeared, who sought the truth about what happened, information about where their relatives were buried, and official recognition of their deaths. However, Brazil's 1979 amnesty laws prohibit any prosecutions over torture and killings by the former military dictatorship. In April of this year, the country's supreme court upheld the amnesty, finding that the actions of the military regime were political in nature and therefore covered by the law, denying the families the information they sought.

Three weeks later, a hearing on the Lund case brought the question of the legitimacy of the amnesty for the first time before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The victims’ representatives argued that the amnesty laws violated their right to information, their right to justice, and their right to the truth, all of which are elements of personal integrity protected by article 5 of the American Convention On Human Rights.

In its “friend of the court” brief, the Open Society Justice Initiative argued that the right to truth is now well established in international law and state practice. It is a broad right that guarantees the public’s right to know about the underlying conditions that led to past abuses, so that societies can prevent such problems from reoccurring in future. In addition, the brief details a number of measures Brazil should undertake to shed light on the circumstances of the Araguaia operations and reform is secrecy laws.

For a broader discussion of the right to truth and possible implications for information about counterterrorism and national security policies, see Open Society Justice Initiative Litigation Director Rupert Skilbeck’s piece in the Guardian, “The Truth Will Out—Except, Perhaps, in the U.S.” The Lund brief is available online in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.