I managed to make reservations at one the South African five star hotels in order to attended an international conference in South Africa concerning the powers of restorative justice. The conference surrounded what exactly does restorative justice look like when the victimizer is the state and the victims are union leaders, church leaders and members, teachers and professors, students, even leaders or members of indigenous groups.
All over the world, totalitarian and dictatorial governments are, even if slowly or barely noticeable, are being replaced with a more participatory government. So, in the midst of these turbulent transitions, victims and survivors, religious leaders and human-rights activists are asking serious questions about the past in an effort to avoid false reconciliation and to realize true restorative justice. They are of the belief that the first step toward restorative justice is taken when governments tell the truth about past atrocities which were carried out by the previous predecessor of the state or country. Perpetrators must admit their sin and ask for pardon. They will also need to provide the evidence for appropriate prosecution within the judicial parameters.
The conference will focus on the past 25 years. There has been over 20 truth commissions around the world. The most known example of restorative justice on the national level is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The conference will discuss how with memory there can be healing. With forgiveness there can be a future. The TRC has received criticism about a lack of direct victim-offender encounters during it’s inception and that very little restitution was carried out by the said offenders.
The conference will address these issues and see if the TRC has learned for example what happened in Chile. The TRC had no judicial powers; it couldn’t establish culpability or impose penalties. This was concerning the Pinochet regime. But, despite the set backs the TRC managed to print out all the names of those who had been killed or disappeared which was extremely significant and did help the healing process to begin. So, let the healing begin.
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