The subjective and social need for truth, acknowledgment, and justice Reparation and restorative justice

Abstract

Many of the victims of human rights violations by the civil-military dictatorship in Chile are still owed truth, recognition, justice, and reparation by the State and civil society. In this sense, although the insistence on guarantees of non-repetition -the “never again”- is almost transversal in the socio-political discourse of all contemporary societies that suffered repression or political violence in their recent past, the institutional instances
of reparation have not been equally transversal. From this perspective, the following contribution proposes three conceptual reflections based on the Chilean experience. First, the aim is to establish contextualized definitions
of two key concepts of policies towards the past: reparation and restorative justice. Then, a reflection on the importance of truth, recognition, and justice in the face of the trauma produced by specific violations to the
integrity of the person perpetrated in the violation of human rights will be developed. Finally, the topic of the still urgent need -for the victim and for society as a whole- of instances of truth, recognition and socio-institutional
justice that lead to the most authentic reparation possible will be discussed in depth.