Editorial

We are pleased to launch our first special edition dedicated to mediation and
restorative justice. We had the honour to receive some inedit and current materials
regarding restorative justice in Great Britain and mediation in Romania and Great
Britain.
We hope that the present issue will inspire and motivate those involved in this
specialty to further support the growth of these methodologies. We also hope that this
edition will be a starting point for new approaches in mediation and restorative justice
in countries that wish to adopt or already adopted mediation and restorative justice as
practical forms of intervention in the justice system.
We are grateful, as always, to those that continue to support us and this time, warm
regards to the authors who answer affirmatively to our invitation to submit materials
for this special edition: Lawrence Kershen, QC, mediator and facilitator and with a
background as a Chairman of the Restorative Justice Council in UK; Dr. Theo
Gavrielides, Founder and Director of Independent Academic Research Studies
(IARS), Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Restorative Justice of Simon Fraser
University; Dr. Martin Wright, mediator and facilitator and senior research fellow at
the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, De Montfort University; Kate Jackson,
commercial and community mediator; Jane Cooksey, commercial and community
mediator; Dr. Ana Blan, mediator and vice-president with Romanian Society of
Criminology and Criminality; Oana Raluca Ciceu, jurist and master student in social
work within justice system at Babe Bolyai University.
We launch this special edition with a material that provokes us asking Why RJ?.
The subjects included here relate to the need for an over-arching body that will
promote the RJ agenda nationally, the importance of effective governance in such an
organisation, the need for a communications strategy that will inform and inspire all
levels of the community, and the essential role that standards play in promoting
effective RJ and its acceptance by the public.
The second material presents some of the possible future directions of restorative
justice. The paper identifies three opportunities for restorative justice, alerting the
restorative justice movement that if it does not restore the damages caused by its own
power-interest battles, it will soon be diminished.
Another interesting subject presents the link between probation and restorative justice
in England context. The article examines the consultative document, a central feature
of which is to privatise much of the probation service on the basis of payment by
results.
The second part of this first special edition approaches the mediation phenomenon,
from which, we can say, restorative justice emerged.

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The fourth article analyzes two common forms of mediation in Great Britain:
commercial and community mediations. Commercial mediations are surely
companies haggling over money and community mediations involve the personal
issues of warring neighbours. However, in reality the issues in each often start with
something as basic as human emotion.
The following article continues, from a psychological perspective, to analyse these
two forms of mediation. As the author says, the difference between these two forms
of mediation relies on the approaches of the people to the mediation and the concerns
that they bring to be resolved. It is these aspects that create the need for a mediator to
have some different approaches.
What happens in Romania regarding mediation and restorative justice? The
penultimate article reviews restorative justice in this country, referring to mediation.
Starting with 2006 mediation in Romania has a legal support and it can be
implemented for criminal justice cases as well.
The last material of this edition analyses the legal support, we mentioned previously,
which makes possible implementing mediation in Romania.
We hope this special edition that focus on mediation and restorative justice will
arouse your curiosity to read and online debate.
Thanking you once again for your interest and support, we are wishing you a pleasant
reading!
PROBATION junior Team

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