ABSTRACT
This chapter assumes that it is liberal democracies, or societies aspiring to become liberal democracies, that invest in transitional justice (TJ). The main argument advanced is that condoning public monuments that symbolically humiliate certain groups is normatively inconsistent for a liberal democracy. The chapter offers a schematic account of liberal democracy and of what could count as symbolic humiliation in such a regime. Liberal democracy is conceptualized here as an institutional order and an ethos guided by a number of normative principles. Given that liberal democracy is the goal of transitional processes, the values it presupposes set the objectives of, as well as the constraints on, TJ projects. Public constructions that contradict moral egalitarianism endanger the normative integrity of a liberal democracy and can, under certain circumstances, negatively impact the institutions legitimacy. In other words, monuments that symbolically humiliate citizens by relegating them to a subordinate position are problematic from a liberal democratic point of view.
