The course aims to promote specific competences about the cooperative and reparative ways of handling conflicts which have penal relevance, according to the principles and methods of restorative justice. It also aims to offer a wider perspective on criminal law and criminal procedure, in order to put them in the proper context of justice, which takes into consideration the victims’ needs.
Students can understand how to use the restorative justice devices – such as victim-offender mediation, restorative dialogue and conferencing – having as a background the national and international legislation.
The course also aims to complete the training of both jurists and linguistic and/or cultural mediators by promoting a harmonious and comprehensive way of approaching the concept of justice, seen in its legal and philosophical background, in which the “individual” plays a pivotal role. Students should gain the awareness of: (a) the importance of building peaceful communities, especially in the context of multicultural and globalized societies; (b) the importance of the use of language.
In particular, the course aims to promote the comprehension of the concept of justice from both the philosophical and linguistic perspectives. From the linguistic perspective, the terminological analysis of “restorative justice” and “mediation” implies a comparison between the Italian and the English lexicon and between the legal language and the common/empathic language.
From the philosophical perspective, students will approach a multi-level teaching – i.e. a way of teaching open to a multidisciplinary approach – that implies a dialogue with different areas of knowledge (such as philosophical anthropology, human rights, criminal law, criminal procedure, criminology and forensic psychology).
At the end of the course, students are required to demonstrate their ability to argue about: restorative justice and victim-offender mediation, restorative dialogue and victims empathy groups (in a theoretical and practical perspective); the role of victims in the European conventions; the protection of victims’ rights.