EFRJ Feedback to the European Commission Concerning the Inclusion of Restorative Justice in the New EU Strategy on Judicial Training

In April 2024, the European Commission opened a call for feedback to assess the effect of the EU 2021-24 Strategy on Judicial Training and to identify new training needs since 2021 in view of the new Strategy on Judicial Training (more information about the call for feedback, here). The European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) has actively contributed with its feedback aiming to strengthen restorative justice frameworks across the EU.

Providing judges with adequate training on restorative justice offers the European Commission an opportunity to equip judicial practitioners with appropriate expertise to apply and interpret the EU law correctly, uniformly, and accordingly to the rule of law. According to the Victim’s Directive 2012/29/EU Art. 12, par. 2, EU Member States must facilitate the referral of cases as appropriate to restorative justice services. In most of the EU Member States, the judiciary (judges and prosecutors, in particular) are key actors in referring cases to restorative justice services. Their lack of knowledge and awareness on restorative justice is one of the main reason of the limited accessibility to restorative justice services in the EU. This lies also on the fact that restorative justice is a relatively new approach and area in criminal justice and many of the members of the current judiciary did not learn about it during their law studies or later during their professional development.

In its feedback, the EFRJ emphasised the critical need to include restorative justice in the new EU strategy on judicial training. 

It further recommends to include restorative justice facilitators as a specific target group within the training strategy (as already done with probation officers and prison staff). 

The EFRJ also suggests enabling members of the judiciary in Europe to access EFRJ, as an European professional networks, available trainings and study visits on restorative justice organised under the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) structure (an option currently open only for national judicial academies and EU institutions). 

The EFRJ has extensive experience in the field of judicial training and restorative justice. Particularly significant are the training programme and materials developed by the RE-JUSTICE project:  https://www.euforumrj.org/en/re-justice-2019-2021

Our feedback aims to strengthen these provisions and ensure comprehensive and effective integration of restorative justice in relevant training curricula. The EFRJ will continue this specific issue with the European Commission and to advocate for the integration of restorative justice across EU legislation, policies and strategies.