Justice in Transition: Community Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 August 2010
• Author: Cunneen, Chris

Justice in Transition: Community Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland

Anna Eriksson

Uffculme:Willan Publishing, 2009

Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste

Elizabeth Stanley, Abingdon: Routledge, 2009

The process of reviewing these two books inevitably involves bringing to the fore a range of preconceived ideas, conceptions, images and theoretical stances by the reviewer. It is important to acknowledge at the outset that from my point of view there is not enough critical literature on restorative justice and transitional justice. Both these books take a critical reflexive approach to restorative and transitional justice paradigms within the specific settings of Northern Ireland and Timor-Leste. Because of this reflexive stance they provide refreshing and informative reading. They are both situated, contextualised readings of restorative and transitional justice that draw from these particular historical examples to enrich our understanding of the broader dynamics of justice in 'post' conflict societies.

I want to deal with the two books separately to begin with and then make some general comments applicable to both. The cover of Anna Eriksson's book shows the Belfast Town Hall which is in the heart of the city--a magnificent Victorian building that survived the years of conflict. I have visited Northern Ireland on several occasions over the last two decades, and Eriksson's book brings back both images and memories--all of which are very much related to the content and arguments of the book.

My first trip was during the marching season of June/July 1997 and the year prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. I drove up from Dublin and crossed over into Northern Ireland at Newry, where there had been a riot the evening before--sparked by the killing of a 16-year-old Catholic girl who was in a relationship with a Protestant boy. It was an eerie experience driving on the dual carriageway, which was littered with burnt out cars and trucks, but the most telling point for me was the fact that a child could be openly murdered for crossing the sectarian boundaries.

The other particular image I have is being in Belfast and seeing a young person, perhaps 16 or 17 years of age, being questioned on the street by police. While there is nothing unusual about this, what was unusual was the fact that behind the two police officers stood three British soldiers cradling their automatic weapons. The importance to me of what I saw was the way in which the political and military struggle in Northern Ireland completely transformed what we would regard as the normal operation of the criminal justice system. In everyday events such as the questioning of this young person, the 'official' criminal justice system was really indistinguishable from military occupation. This issue and the relative roles of the loyalist and nationalist paramilitaries in running their own justice systems provide the context in which Eriksson's analysis of restorative justice occurs.

I want to acknowledge that I am only going to pick up on a couple of points that emerge from Eriksson's work and these relate to broader issues for the restorative justice and transitional justice literature. The first point is the importance of understanding context. Restorative justice, and perhaps even more so with transitional justice, always occurs in specific historical and political contexts. While such a statement...