Restorative justice and normative responsibility

The present article makes the connection between the philosophic-legal issue of imposing criminal liability and restorative justice as an alternative approach in criminal law. The philosophical part proposes the alternative concept of normative responsibility based on moral norms (that incorporate individual responsibility), such as utilitarian considerations and social agreements. Five principles of normative responsibility are derived from theory to this end: fairness, contractualism, rationality, consequentialism and co-autonomy. The practical part examines a model of restorative justice that includes a concept of normative responsibility as an alternative to classical criminal procedure. The approach combines philosophic theory as a basis for normative responsibility with the practice of restorative justice, as an implementation of the theory.