The Political Dimension of Peruvian Extrajudicial Conciliation: Channeling Dissent and the Contextual Configuration of Justice

Abstract

Who decides what is just when two people come into conflict? In Peru, the usual answer points to a judge, although the system behind it is burdened by backlogs, access barriers, and widespread public distrust. In light of this problem, this study examines the political dimension of Peruvian extrajudicial conciliation –understood as a practice of contextual configuration of justice that exceeds the legal capture of conflict– with the aim of grounding its capacity to channel dissent in a structurally unequal society in mutual recognition and shared civic responsibility. To this end, it adopts a qualitative dogmatic-hermeneutic approach, through a critical documentary review of the current regime at two normative junctures, contrasted with philosophical-legal doctrine, comparative constitutional jurisprudence, and official institutional information. The findings show that the conciliatory hearing transforms antagonism into regulated agonistic confrontation, redistributes to the parties the capacity to produce the settlement, and allows justice to take shape within the dialogue itself, although the normative design contains both that promise and the risk of reducing it to mere formality. In conclusion, the institution's transformative capacity is realized only when the deliberative quality of the hearing, the safeguards for the weaker party, and the training of practitioners all converge.