- Tuesday, November 25, 2025
On 21-22 of November, professors of our university took part in a series of meetings on peculiarities of the legislative regulations and the opportunities of realization of the restorative justice, which took place in the University of Bergamo (Italy) as a part of Yurii Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University realization of the Collaboration memorandum with the university of Bergamo (Italy) and the cooperation of italian civilian organizations InConTra and NATHAN.
On November 21 Yaroslava Andrieieva the head of the psychology department, Ruslana Gavryliuk head of the public law department, guarantor of the EPP “Mediation” for specialty D8 “Law”, Lidiia Nesterenko, coordinator of the university mediation service and Nataliiia Volkova, assistant professor of the public law department being invited by the law department of the university of Bergamo have held the series of lectures on the peculiarities of the legislative regulations and the realization of the restorative justice in Ukraine. Topics chosen by our professors raised many questions among the well-acquainted audience of law students and became the core point for further discussion.
Later, our professors had a meeting with the director of the University of Bergamo's law departments, Professor Lucio Imberti, and his colleagues, Professors Anna Lorenzetti and Andrea Patane, to discuss potential collaboration between the universities in the spheres of mediation, restorative justice, and law practices.
On Friday, they had a long and profound meeting with the Mayor of Bergamo, Elena Carnevali, who mentioned her hopes for the development of the collaborations not only between the universities but also between the cities of Chernivtsi and Bergamo. Madam Mayor stressed the importance of the of the introduced programs in restorative justice, the concept of the restorative city, and their impact on Bergamo's growth. She mentioned that restorative justice gives the community its just and decisive role, because the community is seen not just as a place of the accomplished damage, but rather as an active agent of restoration. It means the ultimate need for reparations, baceuse everytime the crime is taking place, the community needs not only restoration but reparation of the damage that was cauesd, it’s about the common resposibility — because the community has to ask itself whether everything needed was done to prevent the repition of the crime and damage, reminding its citizens that restoration is their common responsibility. Besides, it should be remembered that the community can intervene in two ways: as the party harmed by injustice or the responsible party, who helps restore the relationship and its development.
On November 22, the professors from our university joined the national conference “Restorative cities” dedicated to the 20th anniversary of NGO InConTra and the Restorative Justice Center of Bergamo, where Professor Ruslana Gavryliuk had an opportunity to present the implementations in mediation and restorative justice both in Yurii Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University and NGO/PO “Bukovinian center for mediation”. The national convention was organized by the disciples and followers of Jacqueline Moreno, the founder of the humanistic mediation approach, Filippo Vanoncini, Alessandro Sassano, Anna Cattaneo, and Enrico Ambrosio, who were moderating the convention during the whole day and led the discussion on the nature of restorative justice and humanistic mediation.
Our colleagues were impressed by the panel speeches delivered by the professor of the Catholic university of the Holy Heart (ASGP), international collaborator of the Restorative Justice and Peacemaking Center from the University of Minnesota Giovanni Grandi who spoke on the moral and philosophical basis of the restorative justice; deputy head of the law department, who spoke on constitutional-legislative basics of the restorative justice and theologian Friar Guido Bertaniia, who together with Claudia Mazzucato and Adolfo Ceretti started the dialogue between the victims and offenders of the armed in 1970 which lasted in Italy for 7 years and was described in “Book of meetings”.
Restorative justice is a deeply humanistic approach to conflict and crime that offers a radically different approach compared to the traditional punitive approach. It’s not just a legal procedure, but rather an experience that leads people to discover the truth by direct or indirect meeting with the evil itself, one’s vulnerability, and wounds. Compared to dominating reactions to conflict — impartiality (it’s not my concern”) or polarization (“stand against someone”) — restorative justice offers the third, generative way — view the conflict not as something to be avoided, but an opportunity to solve and grow, by means of providing the space where people can talk, listen and perceive the other without judgement, transforming the justice from the technical issue into collective effort.
