![handle is hein.journals/eurjp3 and id is 1 raw text is:
EiP
European Journal of Probation
University ofBucharest
www. ejprob. ro
Vol. 3, No.], 2011, pp 1 3
ISSN: 2006- 2203
SPECIAL ISSUE
'Judicial rehabilitation' in six countries: Australia, England and Wales, France,
Germany, The Netherlands and Spain
Editorial
Guest Editor: Martine Herzog-Evans*
I am pleased and honoured to present to the readers of the European Journal of Probation
(EJP) a series of original papers pertaining to the concept of 'Judicial rehabilitation'.
To be exact, this issue goes beyond the French notion of 'judicial rehabilitation', which we
chose to use as an overall title. In order to best explain it and why it was chosen as such, I
need to explain how the idea of a special issue came to mind,
Whilst preparing a sentencing and probation class for my 5th year students in Reims law
faculty, I read through some of the pages of Shadd Maruna's Making Good (2001). Reading
the last pages again I realized I had not seen at first that what he recommended, in order to
help finalize the desistance process, i.e. a ritual, preferably judicial, whereby the community
would acknowledge solemnly that the offender had turned his life around, actually existed in
French law under the label of 'judicial rehabilitation' ('rhabilitationjudiciaire '). As a matter
of fact, I had done several pieces of research on the historical and legal aspects of
rhabilitation judiciaire and had thus studied numerous files and all known French cases. I
thus planned to write a paper which would show that rhabilitationjudiciaire did match most
of Maruna's desistance ritual criteria. However when I had worked on rhabilitation
judiciaire, I had also tried to uncover its penological grounds and had discovered that French
law provided for a continuum of legal tools (criminal record expunging) which aimed first at
helping with the desistance process, before finalizing its actual successful occurrence. I had
also studied access to criminal records, which was strictly limited under French law in order
to facilitate employment. Desistance being also a process, 'maintenance', to quote Maruna
again, was crucial. The least a legal system could do and this was undoubtedly in the
community's best interest was, in my opinion, not to make things worse. In that respect it
should: limit the public's access to criminal records; sooner rather than later expunge mention
Professor at the University of Reims, France.
Correspondence concerning this Editorial should be addressed to Martine Herzog-
Evans, E-mail: martineevans(vmail. com](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/eurjp3&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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