Transforming Justice Responses to Non-Recent Institutional Abuses

Abstract

This book critically examines justice responses to non-recent institutional abuses across the island of Ireland, comprising Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland within an international context, drawing on insights from interdisciplinary literature (eg law, political science, history, sociology, criminology, and social policy) and extensive primary research. Utilising the island of Ireland, North and South, as its primary case study, it comparatively examines the dominant forms of justice responses to non-recent institutional abuses, including prosecutions and civil litigation, inquiries, redress, and apologies in both Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries. Drawing on the literature related to restorative justice, transitional justice, and transformative justice, the book advances a re-imagined hybrid approach to justice which draws on conventional and innovative justice approaches and seeks to bridge the accountability gap between seeking and achieving justice for non-recent institutional abuses. The critical analysis of justice responses is set against the complexities of the legal, historical, cultural, institutional, and political realities of addressing non-recent institutional abuses. In including the voices of multiple key stakeholders and their experiences of justice processes—victim/survivors as well as church and state actors—in a unique project, it considers how we might reframe discourses on accountability and responsibility, improve justice processes at the level of praxis, and increase engagement between victim/survivors and institutional actors in order to better address the complexities of non-recent institutional abuses and improve justice processes and outcomes.