Funding: AGIS 2006. With financial support from the AGIS Programme European Commission – Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security.
Summary of the project: AGIS is a European Commission framework programme to help police, the judiciary and professionals from the EU member states and candidate countries to co-operate in criminal matters and in the fight against crime.
The general objective of this project was to realise, on the one hand, an effective support to the development of restorative justice in the south of Europe , and, on the other hand, to research what could be the potential role of the European Union in the further development of restorative justice in the whole of the European Union.
The specific objectives were:
1) To provide effective support to the development of restorative justice in Southern European countries by:
- Studying, at the legal-conceptual and practical level, what the possibilities are for implementing restorative justice in Southern European countries.
- Discussing how the experience in the rest of Europe can inform and support the development of restorative justice in Southern Europe.
- Preparing strategies for promoting the development of an integrated policy concerning restorative justice in Southern Europe.
- Actively working towards creating dynamics for exchange and co-operation (networking) between Southern European countries in this field.
- Discussing what countries in the rest of Europe can learn from the developments in criminal justice in Southern Europe.
2) To identify whether there is a need for further regulation about restorative justice at the level of the EU by:
- Analysing the existing legislation on the national level in all EU Member States;
- Making an overview of the existing international regulations;
- Exploring the main needs at national level which could have implications for EU policies;
- Studying whether these needs require specific regulation or other initiative at the level of the European Union;
- Studying whether there is a legal basis and whether it is opportune to actually regulate these issues at the level of the European Union;
- If so, discussing the concrete forms, instruments and the content of the EU policies that are required.
