Samenvatting

In this article the author explores the role of the lawyer in one particular restorative practice in Flanders: mediation with adult offenders in the framework of the law of 22 June 2005. The author discusses the role the lawyers can play before, during and after the mediation. A striking fact is the extremely low number of references by lawyers to the mediation practice. As elsewhere in the literature, the role of the lawyer during the mediation is most under discussion, although it is clear that representation by the lawyer is not admitted.
Claes also describes the different attitudes mediators developed in actively involving lawyers, which vary from automatically contacting the lawyer of the parties to not contacting the lawyers at all. The motives behind these attitudes concern on the one hand the implementation of the right to legal assistance written in the law and on the other hand the empowerment of the parties and the concern to keep the conflict in the hands of the parties.
Finally, Claes shows how lawyers have been structurally involved in the mediation practice, for example as members of the steering committees of the local mediation services.