Comparative Law Discussion: 'Neither Victim-Centered nor Offender-Centered: Comparative Research on Restoration Agreement in England and Wales and China'

As you may know, there is a comparative law discussion group in the faculty which meets a few times a term to discuss comparative research and methodology. The group welcomes PhDs, LLMs and particularly-interested undergraduates. It is not a teaching forum, it's focus is on substantive research and research methodology. It will not be of a direct advantage to any exam in the Law Faculty.

The first meeting will be *Tuesday 12 November in G28 (The Moot Court) in the Faculty, from 13.00-14.00*. Wei Pei, a visiting PhD student from Erasmuc University, Rotterdam, will be presenting and leading discussion on: 'Neither Victim-Centered nor Offender-Centered: Comparative Research on Restoration Agreement in England and Wales and China'

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed an expansion of restorative mediation between criminal offenders and their victims in both China and England and Wales. In a clear break with tradition, both jurisdictions are seeking pathways to insert such mechanism into their existed criminal justice systems. Under such efforts, national laws have been revised with the promulgation of Crime and Courts Act 2013 in the English system and Criminal Procedure Law 2012 in the Chinese system. Victims and offenders are pushed onto the stage in official propagandas, and the two jurisdictions seem to present quite different shows based on either victim-centered or offender-centered ideologies. However, looking further into the statutes and their social and historical backgrounds, neither victims nor offenders are the major consideration of legislators and policy makers. Instead, both jurisdictions are actually sharing an ‘offence-centered’ perspective in shaping restoration agreement in their criminal proceedings, which may inevitably create gaps between what claimed in theory and what achieved in reality. The paper for the Comparative Law Discussion Group will show how a comparative approach can offer the national perspective on substantive criminal law and criminal procedure on important questions like the roles of the victim and the defendant in the criminal process, the process of law reform and the impact of formal rules in practice.

If you or any research students you have/know with a comparative dimension to their work, and if you are such a research student yourself, feel free to come along or get in contact.

If you have any questions, or would like to offer a paper, get in contact with Matthew Dyson on mnd21@cam.ac.uk or call 01223 338520.