Tools in Network: an E-Net Approach to Sharing Mediation Competences.

The Restorative Justice System

From a semantics viewpoint, it is far from easy to pick a definition of "restorative justice" that is both correct and universally acceptable. This is a multi-faceted concept whose boundaries are rather blurred and include highly volatile contents (G. Mannozzi, La giustizia senza spada, Giuffrè 2003, p. 44).

Depending on where the attention is focussed, different labels can be found for the concept at issue. This is why several different definitions are available, depending on whether emphasis is put on the addressee of the restorative action as opposed to the contents of such restorative action or else to the relational features of the conflict.

According to Lode Walgrave, "restorative" justice is a justice model other than both the "retributive" and the "re-educational" one, being focused mainly on remedying the suffering and harm caused by the criminal actions. Unlike punitive justice, which is typical of conventional criminal law systems and is focused on the seriousness of the offence rather than on its consequences, on the offender rather than on the victim, and differently from re-educational justice - which is again focussed on the offender, although it is more mindful of the offender's needs and the demand for prevention - restorative justice puts emphasis on the harm caused by the offence as well as on the person that has suffered such harm.

Howard Zehr has defined it as the justice paradigm in which victims, offenders and the community are involved in the quest for a solution that can foster restoration, reconciliation, and reassurance.

In all the definitions propounded by scholars, the victim is, generally speaking, the focus of attention. In the victimological perspective, restorative justice is aimed at "healing" the evil as well as the bodily, mental and material suffering brought about to the victim and/or the community, as it is not focused on punishment and/or re-education of the offender. This model is meant to overcome the concept of criminal offence as a "violation of legal rules", since committing a crime is regarded as "offending the individual" - or rather, multiple individuals, i.e. the victim (which are deprived of their goods, experience pain and suffering), the community as a whole (which is a prey to an overall feeling of insecurity), and the offender himself/herself (who is a victim, in turn, of the community's stigma and marginalization - as pointed out by Mannozzi, La giustizia senza spada, Giuffrè 2003, ibid., p. 46 et seq.).

The commission of an offence jeopardises the social relationships that have been established and kept up among all the entities in questions. In short, the ambitious objective that is pursued by the restorative justice model does not consist in restoring the legal order that has been breached, but rather in mending the relational gap caused by the criminal activity with the help of reparation.