Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA)Conflict Resolution Alliance (CRA)
A Talk by Judge Clivia von Dewitz
Provincial Court Bad Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established as a compromise by the country’s post-Apartheid government in 1995. It was created to enable and promote reconciliation among South Africans. Victims could testify before the Human Rights Violations Committee and perpetrators of politically motivated crimes, committed between 1960 and 1994 could apply individually for amnesty and testify before the Amnesty Committee.
Judge von Dewitz is currently on sabbatical conducting research around the world and drafting a book on restorative justice, indigenous justice, and the healing power of forgiveness in a courtroom. She received her doctoral degree in law from Humboldt-University in Berlin on how Germany dealt with Nazi propaganda after 1945. She has worked with White & Case Law Firm in Berlin and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Criminal law conducting research on how South Africa dealt with its apartheid-past. She became a judge in the Provincial/Regional Courts of Schleswig-Holstein in 2007. Judge von Dewitz joined the Provincial Court in Bad Segeberg in 2011. In 1997 she interned with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.
Judge von Dewitz will speak about her experience at the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and how this influenced her work as a judge. She will also share what she learned from traveling to Canada and New Zealand in 2019 and attending peacemaking circles, family group conferences and the Rangatahi Court (special Youth Courts for Maori).
