One Year On: The State of Transitional Justice in Syria

On 17 May 2025, President Ahmad al-Sharaa announced the creation of two commissions central to Syria's transitional phase: the National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) and the National Transitional Justice Commission (NTJC). One year on, SJAC assesses what each body has achieved, where gaps remain, and what steps are needed now.

Shortly after their establishment, SJAC published an initial roadmap for transitional justice, which it updated in September 2025. Building a credible transitional justice process is a demanding institutional challenge that requires decades, of sustained political commitment and public trust-building. Measured against that standard, the progress made by both commissions in twelve months deserves acknowledgment. However, a justice process will require clearer strategic direction and more coherent institutional design to translate into meaningful outcomes for affected communities. The Commissions’ work thus far remains marked by limited procedural clarity, undefined institutional roles, and weak coordination with judicial authorities.

The anniversary coincides with the most visible accountability moment since December 2024, marking the first prosecution of a senior former Assad official inside Syria. On 26 April 2026, Atef Najib appeared before the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus alongside eight co-defendants in absentia, including Bashar and Maher al-Assad. The Tadamon file has also advanced: authorities arrested Amjad Youssef in late April, and the NTJC has confirmed it is preparing a case against Fadi Saqr for mass killings and enforced disappearances, although transitional authorities had previously negotiated security arrangements with him. However, accountability remains concentrated in a few high-profile files with no clear strategy for addressing broader harms. In the absence of credible institutional pathways, grievances are being displaced into localized tensions and retaliatory killings.

National Commission for Missing Persons

Over the past year, the NCMP has begun to position itself as the central institutional actor responsible for the missing persons file in Syria. It held its first national consultation in Damascus in July 2025, formed an advisory council, and initially documented the presence of around 63 mass graves. The Commission has since conducted interventions at several suspected grave sites, including Tadamon, al-Utayba in Rural Damascus, sites in Aleppo and Idlib, al-Haffa in rural Latakia, and Mazraat al-Raheb in southern Aleppo countryside, where around 55 remains were recovered. It signed a joint agreement with the ICMP, the ICRC, and the UN’s Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria in November 2025 covering forensic capacity-building and excavation protocols, and an agreement with UNDP in March 2026 to build digital infrastructure and case management systems.

Despite these steps, SJAC's recommendations remain largely unfulfilled. While there have been initial discussions regarding the criminalization of tampering with grave sites, legislative progress has stalled amid continued parliamentary paralysis, and no concrete steps toward a national registration process have been taken. Without a clear legal framework and dedicated staff, the Commission will struggle to manage cases, protect sensitive data, coordinate with authorities, and respond meaningfully to families.

Recommendations

Preserve mass grave sites: The NCMP has acknowledged the need to develop forensic capacity before beginning formal exhumations at key sites and has taken steps to partner with organizations that can provide the necessary operational and technical support. The Commission should now leverage these partnerships to create and begin implementing a site preservation plan, ensuring that evidence is protected ahead of future exhumations and identification processes.
- Centralize exhumations: Draft a law for consideration by parliament to criminalize the tampering of grave sites and clarify one central authority within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to authorize exhumations. Until a comprehensive strategy is in place, exhumations should only be approved in emergency cases, such as when remains are visible on the surface or need to be removed for urgent reconstruction.
- Publicity campaign: Conduct a public campaign urging communities to protect grave sites and educating them on the importance of these sites to identification processes. The NCMP should conduct outreach on local TV and radio channels and coordinate with families of missing persons to support such outreach.
Registration process: Syrian families across the country should have the opportunity to register their missing loved ones in person at offices or mobile clinics. The NCMP should move from planning to implementation of such an effort, including:
- Registration interviews: Develop a standardized interview template to record the cases of missing persons, along with training materials for interview staff. The registration process should happen via in-person interviews with trained staff, not solely via an online form. All cases should be stored within a centralized, secure database.
- Outreach plan: Draft a plan to conduct a nationwide registration process, accompanied by robust outreach to encourage participation, educate families on what missing persons investigations can achieve, and assure them they will not face reprisal for coming forward. The NCMP should identify where registration offices and mobile clinics are needed and how many staff each area requires, potentially in collaboration with the ICRC and existing CSOs.
- Legal status: Draft a law for consideration by parliament creating a unique legal status for registered missing persons. This would allow families to settle inheritance, child custody, and other legal matters while waiting to learn the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.
Provide psychosocial support to families: The registration process and identification of remains are deeply traumatic experiences. The NCMP should partner with the Ministry of Health and relevant INGOs to ensure that psychosocial support services are available to families engaging with the Commission, both while registering and while receiving information about missing relatives.
Place the Commission on firmer legal and financial footing: The NCMP needs legislation clearly defining its mandate, powers, data-protection obligations, and relationship with courts, ministries, and security bodies. Sustainable, independent funding must accompany any such framework.

National Transitional Justice Commission

The NTJC has continued to operate under significant constraints, including limited support from the central government. Its committee was only constituted in August 2025, only took possession of its offices in Damascus in early 2026, and its first report was published sixty days after it was due, with internal regulations and a code of conduct still undisclosed. It held dialogue sessions in several governorates, organized sessions to address the draft transitional justice law, and convened workshops with technical staff and data specialists to design a national victims register. The Commission opened branches in Homs and Deir ez-Zor, and Vice-Chair al-Barazi led a delegation to Tadamon in late April 2026 to hear testimony and encourage residents to cooperate in building the case.

Yet, the core structural problems identified in SJAC's earlier roadmaps remain unaddressed. The Commission's mandate is limited to violations committed by the former government, excluding victims of other actors. It has published no roadmap, workplan, case-selection criteria, or referral procedures, and its relationship with the MoJ remains undefined, raising the risk of duplicated activities and overlapping mandates. These gaps are compounded by legal constraints. The Fourth Criminal Court operates under Syria's 1949 Penal Code, which does not codify crimes against humanity or war crimes, risking an incomplete historical record even where convictions are secured. Since trials have started before the adoption of a transitional justice law, they are isolating narrow criminal trials from a broader coherent process for truth, accountability, and repair.

Recommendations

Publish a workplan, internal regulations, and regular progress reports: The NTJC's first report arrived sixty days late and without key disclosures. Going forward, the Commission must publish its internal regulations, code of conduct, a detailed workplan, case-selection criteria, and referral procedures on a regular schedule, with minimum content requirements including financial reporting.
Clarify the Commission's mandate and institutional role: The NTJC's role must be formally defined in relation to the MoJ, Ministry of Interior, courts, and security bodies. Without this, the Commission risks operating in sensitive accountability files without defined authority or safeguards.
Develop and publish a public justice strategy: There remains no public reasoning for how cases are selected or prioritized, much less how the commission is prioritizing criminal cases alongside other types of justice efforts, such as reparations, institutional reform, or truth seeking. The Commission should set out clear criteria for prioritizing cases, identifying categories of crimes, handling evidence, and addressing senior-level responsibility, including figures who have benefited from political settlements and clarify its plans to pursue justice efforts outside of the criminal justice system.
Expand the mandate beyond former regime violations: The current framework excludes victims of violations by non-regime actors. The mandate must be broadened to ensure equal treatment of all victims and families are right-holders.
Ensure the transitional justice law meets international standards: The absence of such a law is a critical gap that should have been addressed before proceeding with the Atef Najib trial and must be remedied before the trial moves further forward. Any draft must incorporate international crimes, including crimes against humanity, war crimes, and command responsibility, exclude the death penalty, and enshrine fair trial guarantees, victim participation, witness protection, and reparations provisions. The Commission should make the draft public and open it to civil society review without further delay.
Establish a witness and victim protection mechanism: Witnesses are already testifying in the Atef Najib trial before any legal protection framework is in place. The NCTJ, in coordination with the MoJ, should establish an interim mechanism covering identity protection and legal support.
Move victim engagement beyond consultation: Dialogue sessions across governorates are useful but do not amount to structured participation. Victims and families need a defined, ongoing role in shaping the Commission's priorities, procedures, reparations policy, and registry design.
Finally, the NCMP and NTJC have overlapping mandates. The fate of the missing is one aspect of transitional justice truth seeking processes, and has direct implications for possible area so the NCTJ’s work, including accountability, reparations, and institutional reform. A joint working group or liaison mechanism with defined meeting schedules and information-sharing protocols should be established to avoid duplication and ensure consistent handling of evidence and case files. At the very least, the two commissions need to ensure that evidence related to missing persons is shared, such that it can support a variety of justice processes.

Transitional justice institutions cannot be expected to resolve decades of harm within their first year. Yet, as they move beyond establishment, their credibility will depend on whether they can translate mandates into concrete action. SJAC will continue to monitor both commissions, providing updated analysis and recommendations as developments unfold.

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