ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an interpretative model that seeks to justify and understand such trials by emphasizing the effects of an educative dialogue, that strives for social unanimity and peaceful settlements, risks overlooking the formative pedagogical role that conflict plays in a new democracy. Both democratic deliberation and education are thought to provide an index and entry to the other through their social and interactive dimension. The field of transitional studies concerns itself with the complex process of shifting from an authoritarian rule to a democratic one. A conglomeration of political thinkers and social legal theorists in this field have grappled with the social educative role that criminal trials play in societies reckoning with the abuses of a prior regime. The emphasis on dialogue, deliberation, peaceful settlement and reconciliation ends up missing the significant formative role that conflict plays in the transitional moment.
