Issue 8. Second half 2011

This article offers a reflection upon the principles of restorative justice as an innovative paradigm in the field of criminal justice. It addresses current relevant issues in the field of penal law and also its principles, and it offers an explanation of the possibilities that offenders, victims and community members have to get the penal conflict resolved by peaceful and creative means. In order to complement the analysis a mediation case is presented applied to criminal case.

The international abduction of minors does not seem, at first sight, the most appropriated matter for mediation. The extremely high level of the conflict, the language differences that exist between the parties and the legal actors involved make the environment to be extremely complicated. Mediation in these cases provides the possibility to limiting the damage provoked on a minor by keeping the conflict between parents unresolved, thus, undermining the child’s required stability. In this article a real case is presented underpinning the process undergone and the obtained benefits.

Mediationhas not placed its part at the International sphere as it deserves, even if it has been included as one of the goals of the United Nations’ Chart, in the ethos of the European Union and as a raison d’être of diplomacy. Notwithstanding, over the last years both the United Nations (through the Support Unit for Mediation, and the Friends of Mediation Group in which Spain takes part) and the European Union (with the Gothenburg Programme) have developed sound capabilities in the field of mediation, and it is expected they continue doing so in the coming years. Professional mediators have to contribute with their expertise to this international momentum of mediation, given that the right time for this has arrived.

This article explores the possibility of implementing family mediation as part of drug abuse rehabilitation. To this end, a revision of the relationship between drug abuse and the family is conducted, as well as an approache to the different explanation and intervention models in drug abuse, particularly, the role families have in the rehabilitation processes. The author proposes three types of relationships between both processes. The conclusion is drawn that Family Mediation appears to be an effective action that is consistent to both process.

The main goal of this work is to analyze the process of legitimization on the basis of a community mediation case, and to approach it from the critical look of the mediator’s role in relation to his/her own involvement in such a process. For that purpose, after presenting a summary of the mediation case conflict implications, we will analyze the theoretical keys of the legitimization notion in the field of mediation from a theoretical perspective. At the end of the work, the proposal is to unfold a thoughtful, self-critical look of the mediator’s performance regarding his/her participation in the process of legitimization.