ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of the Belgian experiments with victim–offender mediation for juveniles, a lack of legal rules and standards obliged and still obliges Belgian Mediation Centres to establish their own procedures, rules and standards. In this chapter I would like to analyse the ways in which basic procedural safeguards are organized (or not) within mediation practices for juveniles in Brussels and, more specifically, in the Mediation Centre BAS! and its linked Restitution Fund. BAS! means Begeleidingsdienst Alternatieve Sancties or ‘Counselling Service for Community Service’. Originally they only counselled juveniles who had to serve a court-imposed community service. But in 1996 they started an experiment with victim–offender mediation at the level of the Public Prosecutor. The argument for co-operating with the Public Prosecutor is that in this way the young offender is able to avoid a procedure before the Juvenile Judge (diversion). Moreover, both victim and offender have to accept mediation on a voluntary basis. Hence, it is said, a lack of procedural safeguards on this level would be defensible. The question arises however if, in practice, both voluntary acceptance and the avoidance of a Juvenile Judge actually counterbalance the need for legal rules and procedural safeguards for the minors involved.
