Sir, – So much has been said about whether restorative justice has anything to offer in response to the sexual abuse of children in Ireland and across the globe.
Restorative justice is an approach to justice being offered to victims of crime in many jurisdictions across the globe, in addition to criminal and civil justice currently available here. It is non-adversarial and is designed to put victims at the centre of it, within a context of respect for all.
Validation, vindication, exercising voice, victim participation in the design, accountability and truth telling are core. Acknowledgement of wrongdoing is a prerequisite for offender or institutional participation, otherwise restorative processes are not suitable.
Restorative justice processes can include any or all of the following in a single case: victim-offender meetings, restorative conferences (such as meetings with institutional representatives), healing circles, restorative inquiries and restorative redress.
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Restorative inquiries can be codesigned and managed by a core group of survivor representatives, with legal and social science input, including either powers to compel documents or pledges on the part of institutions to engage in a non-adversarial way.
The aim is to ensure a non-legalistic process. It includes access to records, review of all documents, and public and private sessions, including the hearing of testimonies. The terms of reference are hugely important as is the composition of the commission. The process is not concluded until every last question the survivor has is responded to adequately. Care, as much as inquiry, guides the process, and mechanisms are put in place to ensure this for all witnesses. Ideally the State would provide the infrastructure for such a process. Commissioned pieces of research can feed into the inquiry as required.
Restorative redress can include personal and public apologies (in writing and broadcast); financing of counselling; victim-led, simply negotiated systems for financial redress (to ensure funds go to victims and not lawyers); and physical manifestations of contrition, such as a memorial, a park or statue to record the history and help contemplation and remembrance.
We must not repeat the mistakes of assuming that the law and legalistic processes will provide solutions to the hurt and suffering of sexual violence and abuse and other forms of oppression that we have witnessed all too often in Ireland. We need to work with creativity and imagination as well as evidence, based on what we have learned at home and internationally.
This is possible in Ireland. Restorative justice is a voluntary process and victims can also access criminal and civil justice as of right. What is different about restorative justice is that victims are at the centre of it. – Yours, etc,
Dr MARIE KEENAN,
Associate Professor,
School of Social Policy,
Social Work and
Social Justice,
University College Dublin,
Belfield,
Dublin 4.