Legal Application of Restorative Justice: An Introduction in the Discipline of Legal Education

Abstract

Restorative justice (RJ) is a type of transitional justice used as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) tool that gives justice to all parties of a conflict without involving formal judiciary of the state. In Pakistan, there are alternative dispute resolution methods functioning; i.e. Jarga, Panchayat etc. but they are not formally recognized in legal system of the state. Employment of restorative justice by the judiciary will save time and resources of the judiciary as well as of the state. This will further reduce burden of the cases over the judiciary of the country. This restorative justice approach to conflict resolution is needed to be included in legal education of the country to understand its utilities and usage. This paper envisages that how restorative justice could be included in legal education? How the traditional conflict resolution approaches could be made attune with restorative justice that could be used in formal judicial system in the country? The research is limited to apply Pashtūnwalī , Pashtūn code of living, and further trying to theoretically and practically understand restorative justice and Pashtūnwalī .