During Wednesday’s class, we talked about the criticisms Hayner addresses in Unspeakable Truths against truth commissions. One of the ones that provoked a lot of discussion was the fact that some truth commissions grant amnesty in exchange for the truth. This belief seems like it’s a foreign idea, but the United States actually does this in certain cases.
For example, I was watching this one show about the Witness Protection program in America and in the episode, this guy who helped this mob boss “off” some people was granted protection so that he could testify against the mob boss. While I think the American approach to giving amnesty to people that should otherwise be prosecuted is more Utilitarian in its approach than in truth commissions, the principle is the same.
The fact of the matter is sometimes when it comes to enforcing justice, regardless of our definition of the word, we sometimes let the little fish go to catch the big fish. Although I can understand how it would make since to use such a method to catch criminals, if one of my family members was “off’ed” by the associate of the mob boss, I would still want him punished despite the fact that he helped catch the true mastermind behind the plan. I think it just goes back to the fact that most people, especially Americans, would rather have a redistributive form of justice than a restorative one just because the outcome is known and tangible.
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I think this is a good point about a person who has a family member killed by a mob associate. But I think in that case restorative justice, at least for that person, is not possible. Restorative justice is about bringing a community back together and for the relationship between the mob associate and the person whose family member was killed there may not be any form of restorative justice that can work. That is why rectificatory justice should still be a component of punishment
ReplyDeleteYa, i mean i think we would all agree with you that the guys no matter how "small" he may be is still a perpetrator of the law, and therefore should be punished. I dont think anyone would object to this, but the problem lies in the fact that these people have no reason to tell the truth unless they are granted amnesty. Now as you said in the states we do sometimes let the little fish go to catch the big one, but in these cases i would argue that the little fish is still kept under witness protection and therefore is not absolutely free or is kept on parole, but i do see your point.
ReplyDeleteTruth in exchange for amnesty in this case is different than what we talk about in truth commissions, for as Guy said, restorative truth is more concerned with the healing of a community. We accept truth for amnesty in the setting of truth commissions not in order to catch a "bigger fish" but in order to understand what happened and learn from it. In this case, amnesty was given in order to catch someone else, and not in order to understand what truly happened so the victims of the crime may be helped.
ReplyDeleteI do think it's true that most people (not just Americans) would want redistributive justice rather than restorative justice, but we also need to realize that different types of justice may help people in their own unique way.
I agree that this certain case of amnesty is more about catching the larger perpetrator than helping the victims, but I think that it is important for the victims that this was done. If the larger perpetrator was not caught, the victims and their families for example, would have to live with the thought that what happened to them could happen to another set of people, and I feel like that in itself would collide with their efforts to heal in some way. At least for myself, knowing that the person who hurt me (if I were a victim of such) would be much more damaging than if they were caught and punished for what they did, and I then had to recover.
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