Responsive Freedom

A restorative justice strategy is about the idea that because injustice hurts, justice should heal. It should repair harm and meet fundamental needs, such as the need for safety. A responsive strategy is about the idea that justice should be responsive to how actors are behaving in a particular legal environment. Restorative and responsive justice means that a business regulator may be less punitive with a firm that breaks the law if the firm is subject to a self-regulatory regime that disciplines those responsible and repairs harm. This puts restorative and responsive justice in tension with other justice values. For example, will a lawbreaker, who has no access to a self-regulatory scheme, who is not in a position to repair harm to victims, be more vulnerable to the full force of the law? One radical strategy is to give up on the impossibility of reconciling equal justice for lawbreakers and equal justice for victims. Equal concern for the justice claims of all stakeholders to be free from domination by injustice is one alternative.