The impact of the processes of revision of the amnesty laws on the quality of democracy in Latin America

Abstract

This paper is related with the topic of transitional justice (retribution and reparations that take place after the transition from one political regime to another). How to turn certain pages in history and at the same time to assure the best affordable transition to democracy, the rule of law and peace when violences and repression left deep scars on the bodies and the souls? The amnesty is a solution that has some advantages. Its costs, however, can be considerable. The page is turned over before having been read, and nothing prevents the same horrors to be rewritten. This issue acquires dramatic contours in contemporary Brazil. While our South American neighbors have already reviewed their laws of amnesty, reaffirm the importance of the right to the truth and the memory, and even take some of the violators of the human rights during regimes of exception to the witness stand, in Brazil the debate on the amnesty law is only starting. This delay in reassessing the violations of human rights of the military dictatorship has serious implications for the consolidation of democracy.