International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 144

Restorative Justice
African TRC have benefits? Of course, as did the gacacas, which allowed an entire
country—and because they spread, neighboring countries as well—to adopt the road
towards reconstruction, by putting words and stories to indescribable suffering. At
the macroscopic, political, and sociological level, the operation of these large models
was, however, quite controversial. We invite the reader to take note of how the matter
is currently being reported on (the Rwandan gacacas being a typical example of
a contested model). However, scientifically, these models are today the subject of
very interesting analyses, with a focus now on individuals and their real impact on
participants. To this end, variables have been isolated, such as gender and the nature
of the violence suffered (like the impact of the South African TRC on women who
were victims of rape). The results observed are very telling: some of these collective
restoration processes could well have had adverse individual effects, beyond their
contested political and social effects. It has been observed, for example, that some
victims have been re-victimized and their suffering has increased, especially for
women who were the primary victims of sexual violence. In spite of the process of
collective reconciliation, they have been subjected to ongoing gender stereotypes and
the male domination of discussions in the matter of collective restoration (Ephgrave
2015, Nesiah 2006). Some have even been reduced, more or less directly, to exchange
currency, which itself was strictly speaking the purpose of the restoration.
In a completely different field, the same negative results on the ability to
re-establish “social harmony”—or rather to allow for the closure of an issue—
have been observed in healing circles and sentencing circles. After a sudden and
highly praised appearance of these mechanisms in the large family of restorative
justice (on the history of these mechanisms, see, for example, Cario 2010), the first
critical studies concerning these so-called reparative models of justice, intended for
aboriginal peoples, were not long in coming (Jaccoud 1999; Strimelle and Vanhamme
2009). According to researchers, these two processes fail by their tendency to want
to combine the Western criminal system and the restorative system, the first always
taking priority, implicitly, over the second. Sentencing circles especially, as well as
healing circles, are then described as copies (with an aboriginal hue) of a Western
mode which insidiously enables a gentler application of Western measures. Later,
unfortunately, these impressions were confirmed: concomitantly to the Gladue 5 (1999)
case coming into effect in Canada, scholars from the First Nations accused restorative
justice of representing a new way of subjugating and controlling aboriginal peoples.
After an extensive study of the actors in these processes—concerning the role of
judges in particular—there was a focus on the breadth of issues these programs raise
(Belknap and McDonald 2010).
5
R. c. Gladue, [1999] 1 S.C.R. 688.
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