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Restorative Justice, Policing and Insurgency: Learning from P akistan
Author(s) -
Braithwaite John,
Gohar Ali
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12091
Subject(s) - injustice , restorative justice , legitimacy , democracy , pluralism (philosophy) , politics , law , political science , legal pluralism , accountability , insurgency , civil society , economic justice , human rights , rule of law , sociology , public administration , comparative law , legal realism , philosophy , epistemology
P akistan state law and T aliban rule of S haria law are at different ends of a politico‐legal spectrum. They share advocacy of one system of law and attraction to eradication of alternatives. M uslahathi C ommittees in P akistan are used to explore legal pluralism, hybrid institutions that allow deliberative democracy to seek workable responses to injustice. Formal and traditional systems can show mutual respect and check each other. On the basis of purely qualitative evidence, it is argued that M uslahathi Committees are restorative justice programs that sustainably reduce revenge violence, make a contribution to preventing P akistan from spiraling into civil war, and assist a police force with low legitimacy to become somewhat more accountable to local civil society. These contributions are limited, but could be more significant with modest investment in human rights and gender awareness training to control abuses and increase accountability. The ruthless, murderous, divisive politics of policing and restorative justice in P akistan seems a least likely case for deliberative democracy to work. In limited ways it does.