Source: (2004) Restorative Justice Online. October 2004 Edition.
New Zealand’s Sentencing Act of 2002 incorporated restorative justice language in its sentencing provisions. Judges are now required to consider the results of a restorative process in sentencing decisions. Judge Stan A. Thorburn of the District Court in Auckland recently applied these provisions to a case of aggravated robbery. Under existing case law, the sentence for such a crime would be 4 years in prison. However, the victims and offenders had met together in a conference arranged and facilitated by a court-affiliated restorative justice program. In his sentencing notes recorded below, Judge Thorburn considers the legal relevance of the successful outcome of this conference in imposing sentence under the 2002 Act.
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