APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 16 16 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL Ontario, Canada. According to Stutzman Amstutz, a probation office and volunteer for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) named Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, who worked for MCC, ‘were frustrated by the ways offenders were cycling through the [criminal justice system], without taking responsibility for what they had done to their victims. They suggested to the judge that the two offenders in this case go back and meet the people they had harmed. After some hesitation, the judge sentenced the offender to do this’.56 The results of this case were that the offenders met their multiple victims, heard what they had to say, determined fair restitution, and apologized for their actions. This small beginning of addressing harm and making things right began a community-based movement that eventually gained acceptance in legal circles. Instead of meting out punishment deemed somehow equal to the harm done—an ‘eye for an eye’ response— restorative justice advocates suggest that ‘once the facts of the crime have been established, our priority should not be to punish the offender but [i] to meet the victim’s needs, and [ii] to ensure that the offender is fully aware of the damage they have caused to people and of their liability to repair that damage’.57 Restorative justice is not just about victims and offenders. Its indigenous and religious roots indicate that there is a community responsibility to address wrongdoing and the harm it causes and be involved in making things as right as possible. This is done to help restore, if possible, the broken relationship between victims and offenders in order to maintain harmony and a well-functioning community. The interdependent reality of community requires that its members be active in transforming conflict and creatively dealing with criminal acts in order to meet individual needs within their collective reality.58 Such an ethic is at the heart of restorative justice and points to similarities in customary law principles and practices. Where restorative justice and customary law may differ is that the principle and practices of the former are meant to give everyone a voice within the community. In patriarchal societies, where men make decisions about major issues, whether within a traditional or legal context, the ideas, opinions, and psychological pain of others are not always heard. In a more restorative social system that attempts to meet the concerns, interests, and rights of all, it is critical for the voices of women and young people and other marginalized members of society to be heard. A more complete expression of restorative justice values and practices within the customary law framework would further justice processes in Somaliland. Introducing restorative justice methods to strengthen the existing relationship between customary and civil law in Somaliland requires an educational process involving judges, lawyers, academics, restorative justice and customary law practitioners as well as academics and practitioners involved in conflict transformation. The Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Hargeisa has introduced restorative justice concepts into several of its courses, and as the institute creates separate courses on restorative justice and engages its law school faculty and students to further re56. L. S. Amstutz, The Little Book of Victim Offender Conferencing (Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Good Books, 2009), 9, 10. 57. Johnstone, Restorative Justice, 1. 58. D. Louw, ‘The African concept of ubuntu and restorative justice’ in Sullivan and Tifft, Handbook of Restorative Justice; Zehr, Changing Lenses.