Conducting a National Inquiry into Systemic Patterns of Human Rights Violation Because of the breadth of a national inquiry, it has the capacity to look comprehensively through its recommendations at how a situation of human rights violation can be addressed most effectively. 12.5. DRAFTING RECOMMENDATIONS To be good and effective, a recommendation must be well drafted. Different management writers have proposed various lists of characteristics for well-drafted recommendations but most lists have common characteristics. A good, effective recommendation should be: • specific • measurable • achievable • relevant • timely.17 In addition to these characteristics, each recommendation should be well targeted, indicating clearly who is to do what, when and, if possible, how. That is, each recommendation should specify: • the organisation, agency or individual to which it is directed for implementation • the action recommended to be taken • the time in which it is reasonable to expect that action to be taken • the means by which the action should be taken. The recommendation should be specific enough that it is possible to determine whether it has been implemented and, if so, to what extent and with what success. 12.6. THE NUMBER OF AND PRIORITY AMONG RECOMMENDATIONS One question that arises in a national inquiry is how many recommendations it should make. At one level the answer is simple: as many as are needed, no more and no less. That is correct but developing recommendations is more complex than that. In general, having fewer recommendations is better than having more. Certainly an important recommendation should not be ignored and deleted. There should be as many recommendations as required. However, it is always possible to develop more recommendations, to add to the list. Refining them is more important than adding to them. The issue is pragmatic. A smaller list of key recommendations is more likely to be accepted and implemented than a long list of recommendations of varying degrees of significance. That introduces a second issue: priority. Not all recommendations are of the same order of importance and so they are not of equal priority. Some are of more importance and of higher priority than others. The report itself should distinguish between levels of priority. If it does not, the Government and others to whom recommendations are directed will be under less pressure to act on them. Take, as an example, an inquiry that makes 80 recommendations, of which 60 are addressed to the Government, and does not indicate any priority among them. The Government may respond by going through the list of recommendations and identifying those that can be implemented quickly and inexpensively, without regard for their significance in addressing the basic issue or situation. It might be able to identify 50 of the 60 recommendations addressed to it that could be implemented quickly and inexpensively. It selects from the recommendations those that it likes and that cause it the least pain. 17 60 This is commonly called the “SMART” typology.