Abstract
Restorative justice is an innovative movement in the field of victimology and criminology. The formal judicial system of Bangladesh is very expensive and follows a lengthy procedure for the lack of financial resources and outdated legislation pose. Majority of middle class people therefore prefer or rather have no choice but to use the traditional justice mechanisms like restorative justice. This study was an effort to find out how restorative justice could be an effective method for dispute resolution to reduce the backlog and future case loads in Bangladesh. Besides, the core challenges of successful Restorative Justice and some prevention policies to recover drawbacks of the restorative justice in Bangladesh were also studied. As the nature of the research is qualitative in nature, data and information had collected from secondary sources. This study found that, the most important challenge of restorative justice in Bangladesh is the huge backlog of cases, relative ignorance and lack of confidence and legal awareness of the service seekers and providers, lack of monitoring and supervision of the court activities, negative attitudes and perceptions towards legal institutes and absence of legal aid and support. Though the Village Courts have limitations and drawbacks but still it is playing an important role in the settlements disputes and maintaining social peace and tranquility in the rural area. This study argues for the necessary amendments of the village court act, proper monitoring and supervision of the government, resources and preparedness as well as the responsiveness of all stakeholders that can ensure effective restorative justice in Bangladesh.
Highlights
Restorative justice is an innovative movement in the field of victimology and criminology
In an analysis of what victims need from restorative justice, Mc Cold (2001), found that victims in the traditional criminal justice system commonly experience: a lack of attention to ‘non-material dimensions of victimization’, for example, anger, fear and mistrust; no focus on repairing the injury caused by crime; failure of the criminal justice system to clearly communicate with victims regarding the status of the case; failure to provide victims with a legitimate and active role when dealing with offences committed against them; and perceptions of a lack of procedural fairness and dissatisfaction with outcomes due largely to having been excluded from the decision-making process
Restorative justice has burst on the international scene as an umbrella concept and social movement
Summary
Restorative justice is an innovative movement in the field of victimology and criminology. A few years ago, as per Law Commission report, the total number of pending cases in different Courts of Bangladesh was 19, 13,633 in 1 January, 2010 and in 2009 a number of 7, 19,770 cases were settled following the formal procedure. The Government of Bangladesh has passed the Village Court Act 2006 which is amended in September 2013 that empowers Union Parishads to resolve disputes that fall under the jurisdiction of the Village Court Act in an attempt to devolve justice down to the community level. The prevailing restorative model of justice at the local government level in Bangladesh which argues that this model, if adequately activated and reformed, can be a desirable alternative to the formal system of justice for children who come into contact or conflict with the law. The core challenges of successful restorative justice and some prevention policies to recover drawbacks of the restorative justice in Bangladesh were studied
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