DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2016.v04i05.008

Pages: 510-518

This paper explores the options available for putting the pain of displacement and loss behind the victims of displacement due to violence in one’s country and how the options are rated by the victims. It examines the discourse of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence on the subject of justice and seeks to understand their expectations as a solution to the injustice they have suffered. On the one hand the study considers the choice of institutionalized legal framework of subjecting the suspected perpetrators of the violence to the criminal justice procedure and on the other is a social process whose primary objective is to restore the lives of the victims to an economically stable position and put the matter to rest. The question is addressed by analysing the views of displaced persons collected through interviews. The analysis is guided by Critical Discourse analysis. A key finding of this paper is that that restorative justice transcends legal justice.