What relationship to justice is established when an attempt is made to respond to the legacy of a criminal regime in the context of a new democratic beginning? To respond to this question, we must confront both the question of the foundation of a new democracy as well as the need for justice that accompanies this new beginning. On the following pages, I will offer interpretations of the different yet exemplary forms of responding to this question in Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa at the end of the last century. To do so, I will compare and contrast these three experiences in an attempt to shed light on an issue that is difficult to approach and entails certain debts.