An incestuous father and his daughter find themselves in the same room to calmly discuss the tragic events that took place a few years earlier. This barely believable scene is not from a Hollywood detective series, but from a restorative justice mediation that Pauline Voisard films, without judging her, in When punishment is not enough.
Restorative justice is therefore an approach that places people at the heart of an unprecedented process where victims and criminals meet under the supervision of a mediator. Complementary to the traditional justice system, its objective is to remedy the ills caused by an attack by allowing the parties to initiate a discussion. “For some victims, a judge declares the accused guilty, it is not satisfactory,” says the mediator Jean Montambeault. In order to better understand what happened and, perhaps, move forward, it is sometimes necessary for these people to hear the offender acknowledge the wrongs that have been done.
As Pauline Voisard shows in her latest documentary, restorative justice is neither automatic nor obvious. According to Jean Montambeault, it is “only one possibility among others”, and having recourse to it can take time. For example, mediation is not always appropriate for a person still weakened by the facts. But when the right time is right and each individual’s pace is respected, restorative justice can be liberating.
To see in video