The revised Belgian Youth Justice Act (YJA) (2006) is featured as a case study due to the important restorative justice dimensions that it has introduced. The legal system in Belgium is dominated by a civil law regime with a deep-seated tradition in youth justice characterized by an almost exclusively ‘treatment’-oriented approach. Whilst the implementation of the revised YJA has encountered some challenges, it has also revealed that it is possible to prioritize restorative processes within a conventional civil law regime. That being said, the fundamental change that the Act aspired to achieve is only made possible by the application of additional measures.