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Political, media and legal elites vary broadly and quite genuinely in their opinion of what should have been done regarding Pres Bill Clinton and his acceptance of public responsibility for personal misconduct a year after the Congressional probe on the president was begun. What is quite striking about this investigation is the existence of a widespread belief that nothing less than the republic's fate is at issue in the disposition of the Clinton probe., During the fall of 1998, the House of Representatives struggled over whether to impeach President Clinton. In the end they did. Future historians will judge whether the struggle was necessary [...]

The author contends that under current practice, public inquiries tend to be unreasonably protracted and costly, vulnerable to political manipulation and threatening to civil liberties. The author proposes a number of avenues for reform. Public inquiries should be used more sparingly. Ordinary civil and criminal processes my be sufficient or may be rendered sufficient through a modest adaptation such as bringing in an outside prosecutor. The creation and oversight of public inquiries should be taken out of the exclusive control of governments, and more of a say should be given to bodies such as parliamentary committees. Inquiries are often hastily created in the heat of public controversy over a newly emerged tragedy or scandal. Instead, they should only be established after extensive investigation and deliberation. Any inquiry that is created should have a well-defined and manageable mandate and should be directed to observe an explicit set of safeguards for civil liberties. Once an inquiry is in operation, it should consider conducting at least the first part of its investigation through more efficient means than through a 'trial' format. An initial compilation of interviews and documents may enable those in charge of an inquiry to narrow the issues and to select the limited set of witnesses whose evidence should be further developed and tested at the trial-like stage of the inquiry. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Details of mass grave exhumations of people killed and buried during the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain is presented. History behind the mass killings, techniques used for exhumation, and government policies regarding investigation of mass graves are also highlighted.