RESTORATIVE justice entails the need for victims and perpetrators to understand each other in order for them to be accepted in society, an expert says. <\/p>\n
Professor Howard Zehr said people needed to make the legal system work if they were to live a peaceful life. <\/p>\n
The co-director of the Conflict Transformation Programm at the 黑料正能量 in United States was speaking at a public lecture on the promise and challenges of restorative justice at the University of the South Pacific on Monday evening. <\/p>\n
He said something good about the Western legal system was that it made people pay for the crimes they committed.<\/p>\n
He said victims needed a lot of answers on why a crime was committed against them, they needed to tell the truth in order to receive justice and they needed empowerment to be able to face the world.<\/p>\n
“Restorative justice has a set of consistent values. We tend to bring systems from outside and regulate it into our own to make it work,” he said.<\/p>\n
For offenders, Proffessor Zehr said there needed to be acceptable ways of dealing with shame in society.<\/p>\n
Doctor Steven Ratuva of the Pacific Institute of Advanced Studies in Development and Governance said while a lot of people in Fiji used restorative justice, many of them did not understand it.<\/p>\n
He said while the concept was relatively new it had been practiced for a long time.<\/p>\n
Proffessor Zehr is the author of numerous books and articles and an adviser to a number of international organisations and governments.<\/p>\n
The Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy, which co-ordinated his visit, said it was timely that we create the space to continue discussions on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"