The transition to democracy. A new object of study for legal history

The present chapter, with the intention of providing an introduction, points out some key issues discussed in the different parts of the book. As well as the identification of critical aspects related to transitional justice experiences (i.e. rights to the truth, impunity; role of judiciary; selectivity of/exclusion from transitional justice), the chapter highlights the connections with the broader phenomenon of transition to democracy (i.e. its links with constitutional, legal, institutional and political history). Furthermore, we indicate the methodological relevance of the spatio-temporal placement of the problem, in particular in relation to comparison of experiences and adoption of a reconstructive scale of transnational and local dimensions; taking into account multitemporality and the attributive character of the transition time. One more issue is the question of the outcomes of the transition process.