Beyond restorative justice : understanding justice from an African perspective

Abstract

Over the past few decades, there has been a growing interest in restorative justice in terms of the alternatives it offers to the narrow limits of the criminal justice system. This has also been the case in the African context, where some argue that local justice processes reflect a restorative approach to justice. In this article, we explore this assertion and argue for the adoption of the term African restorative justice to encapsulate the ways in which local justice processes on the continent echo certain aspects of restorative justice approaches globally, but also have characteristics that make them uniquely African. Of interest is what African restorative justice can offer national, state-led interventions in relation to mass conflict. We reference the cases of South Africa and Zimbabwe, where interviews were held, together with observations of tradition-based practices, in order to understand local understandings of justice. This article discusses the findings which include the difficulties in bringing together human rights, human dignity, customary law and the state-led justice system. It argues for the importance of community and ‘endogenous’ knowledge in helping us overcome and move beyond the dual thinking that is often apparent in public discourse, of either rejecting local justice practices as being undemocratic and having nothing to offer a new, contemporary democratic order, or accepting them idealistically and uncritically.