Reconciliation and transitional justice: the contribution of forgiveness towards healing and restoration

Forgiveness is primarily addressed in the transitional justice discourse as a restorative value, as part of several concepts complementing retributive justice (Braithwaite and Strang 2001). Scholars define restorative justice by emphasising it either as a value or as a process, and the same logic applies to forgiveness. It could be conceived as a process where a group of individuals or societies come together to solve issues. Forgiveness can relieve the burdens created by wrongful actions and intolerable debts and suggests that both victim and perpetrator can start afresh (Digeser 2001). It might even imply the re-establishment of moral equality between the parties. This chapter suggests that forgiveness is a valuable and complementary mechanism for healing and restoration of individuals and societies.