Abstract:

I. Location: author presents this paper to INTED 2010, in order to share with all its participants an experience that has carried out the course 2008-2009 with Law students. The author wants to show the attendants of the Conference a communication that includes three topics of it:
->Experiences in Education: the one who writes this paper teaches Jurisdictional Law in the University of The Basque Country. He shows pupils how the ius puniendi of State works. He teaches the formal part of Criminal Law. Concretely, he explains criminal procedure and its stages, stressing the work of judges and the activity of the plaintiff and defendant in it. All this to obtain a Retributive Justice, that limit itself to punishing the delinquent, but not cure him; a Justice that does not repair the victim, neither the society. Pupils do not study Restorative Justice, the one that thinks about not only the delinquent, but society and victim too. That is the reason why the teacher has been thinking for last years about explaining together jurisdictional way to solve the crime, the criminal mediation as a mechanism that seeks Restorative Justice.
->Pedagogical innovations in Education: during 2008-2009 school year we have introduced a new lesson in our syllabus: Criminal mediation. Besides, we have designed a methodology bases on Problem-Based Learning (PBL), case method and cooperative learning in order to work this issue with our students. We will explain how we did it in our paper.
II. Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice: Criminal procedure that we explain to our students is based on the principles of Retributive Justice. Traditional State’s response to crime focuses on punishment that it imposes to the offender for violating basic norms of social coexistence. This mechanism is branded as illegitimate as the solution to the conflict is limited to imposing a wrong, the penalty. So, in this frame both are the protagonists in the criminal conflict resolution: the State and the offender. The victim is neutralized by the State, ignored. Other way, Restorative Justice understands the offense, more as a violation of human relationships, as a violation of law, understanding that crime is committed more against people and communities than States; that is why it does not belong exclusively or primarily to State, formulated, hence, as a social problem that belongs to all people living in a society.
III. Criminal mediation: the principal hope to improve Jurisdictional way of crime resolution: Criminal mediation is criminal conflict resolution mechanism based on communication and interaction, where with the help of a third mediator, before, during or after a criminal proceeding, a negotiated settlement between the victim and the offender is achieved, repairing harm caused to the victim through an other response than pain, than mere retributive punishment, and achieving at the same time social reintegration of the offender.
IV. The experience of 2008-2009 school-year: Restorative Justice conquers classroom: Based on the foregoing, during the first semester of 2008-2009 school year, the one who writes these lines has introduced criminal mediation and Restorative Justice in the syllabus of his signature.

Keywords:

Criminal mediation, restorative justice, experiences in education, pedagogical innovations.