Introduction.

Source: (2005) In Erik Claes, René Foqué, and Tony Peters, eds., Punishment, Restorative Justice and the Morality of Law. Antwerp; Oxford: Intersentia. Pp. 1-14.

In what follows, the contents of each of these three parts (of the book) are briefly introduced and outlined. The contributions have a dual objective: first, they reflect a common effort to define the role of restorative justice in relation to the penal system, and second, they seek to uncover the fundamentals of a democratic state governed by fundamental rights, democratic principles, and the rule of law, as an appropriate means to estimate the legitimate prospects of restorative justice. This last goal will be referred to using Lon Fuller’s well-known expression “the morality of law.” (excerpt)