The Colonial Legacy and Transitional Justice in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced a brutal colonial regime and a segregated judicial system with a weak educational  system used to support colonial policies and a post-colonial legal framework designed to avoid prosecution for colonial-era crimes. Under such a regime, a broad range of violations were registered including about 10 million people who were killed. In the aftermath of the colonial era, the post-colonial regime did  not sufficiently redress the situation through prosecution or meaningful reforms. Consequently, most of those atrocities remained unpunished. This  study lists the main reasons for why the colonial-era crimes were not investigated which are linked to the gaps in the legal framework, the configuration  of the judiciary, and an informal agreement between the DRC and the Belgian governments.