Building Restorative Justice Through a Case Based and Reflective Dialogue Between Researchers and Practitioners

Source: (2008) Report of the fifth conference of the European Forum for Restorative Justice, Building restorative justice in Europe: cooperation between the public, policy makers, practitioners and researchers, Verona.

In the first part, the initiators of this workshop addressed their story to an audience of scientists and practitioners. They reported briefly on their dialogical experiences, thereby focusing on two issues, each raised from a distinct perspective: 1. From the point of the view of the mediator, the issue will be raised: ‘How did this dialogue with a normative theoretician affected the self-understanding of the mediator?’ 2. From the perspective of normative theory the issue will be addressed: ‘How does the assessment of normative concepts and principles (such as responsibility, accountability, checks and balances, proportionality) in practice bear on the more theoretical debate around restorative justice and his underlying values?’ In the second part of the workshop, the initiators presented two questions to the audience, which were discussed in plenum, after short deliberation in groups. (excerpt)