Narrazioni di ingiustizia, giustizia come narrazione. L'esperienza sudafricana come "sperimentazione giusletteraria"

Starting from a brief overview of the instrumental use of law for the legal, as well as social and psychological, dehumanization of people during South African apartheid regime, the essay compares, on the one hand, the 'freezing', traumatic and humiliating effects of crimes "that cannot be punished nor forgiven" and the healing power of narratives, as made possible also by the works of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and, on the other, the risks of stigmatization and secondary deviance related to a purely punitive-retributionist approach to criminal law, and the new perspectives opened by a 'narrative', as well as restorative justice, approach to the solution of conflicts arising from the commission of a crime.