On the outskirts of Uma, one of the most war-torn suburbs of Damascus, in a veiled living room by the stove, Uma Mazen recounts the 12 years she spent desperately searching for news of her two sons, who were arrested in the early years of the uprising and civil war, and swallowed in the security system of the Assad era.
She finally got a death certificate for her eldest son Mazen, but for Abu Hadi, no trace was ever found.
Her third son, Ahmed, spent three years in the security system, including eight months in the red pavilion for political prisoners in that synonym for brutality, Saydnaya prison.
His teeth were broken by the torturer's hammer, and he recalls a moment when he believes he heard Brother Mazen's voice answering the roll call in the same prison, but nothing else.
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What kind of justice does Um Mazen seek for the destruction of her family?
"There should be divine justice, which comes from God," she says.
"I saw some locals bringing a shabih (an armed member of the regime) to be killed."
"I told them: 'Don't kill him. Instead, torture him as much as he tortured our young men'."
"My two children died - or probably died, but there are thousands of other young people who were tortured.
"I pray to God that Bashar al-Assad remains in an underground dungeon and that Russia, which once protected him, can no longer help him.
"And to place him somewhere underground and remain forgotten there - just like he left our young people in prisons," he adds.
Lawyer Hussein Isa is seeking justice for dozens of people accused of political crimes under the Assad family.
He faced constant pressure from the authorities because of his legal practice, but he was persistent and managed to save some of his clients from being crushed under the wheels of the security system.
But for those sent to special terrorism courts, usually nothing could be done.
The Terrorism Act loomed ever more threateningly over Syria as the civil war continued.
tobacco smoke on the outskirts of Damascus, the 54-year-old lawyer says he believes many of the judges who have been complicit in the Assad regime should be ousted and prosecuted.
But some others from that era, he says, could still work in the new judiciary.
And as for the enormous challenge of bringing retrospective justice to the horrors of the past 50 years, Isa says establishing a legal system capable of doing so is the most important task of the new Syrian authorities.
"If this system is not good, the future of the new state will be bleak.
"We don't know how bad everything will get then. We are already afraid that some parties could cause discord and conflict.
"If we have a strong system and state, then we won't have to be afraid of these things.
"If we don't have them, we will be in fear. However, since I am an optimist by nature, I think the new regime will definitely be better," he says.
The monumental building in the Syrian capital that houses the Ministry of Justice did not work for several weeks after the fall of Assad.
Now clusters of lawyers gather in the elevators and corridors before the civil and criminal courts open.
In her fifth-floor office, Deputy Justice Minister Kitam Haddad says criminal and civil cases will once again be dealt with, but the task of solving crimes under the previous regime will not be on the agenda for now.
While her large heavy desk is covered with court files, she says she has been working as a judge since 2013.
She was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice in 2023.
For now, he is still in that position.
"I feel a personal responsibility towards this issue," she says.
"It is necessary for the work to continue, for the judges to return to work and for the courts to return, because as a Syrian I want my work to continue and I want this victory to continue, so that people would have nothing to fear.
"I want to send realistic and realistic messages of reassurance, not just tell empty stories."
But some lawyers are already worried about the move by the transitional authorities to establish a council to oversee the Bar Association without putting that decision to a vote.
In the petition, they said such an approach would replace one form of authoritarianism with another.
For now, the laws and legal structure of the Assad era remain in place, including the terrorism law.
It could be a long time before the cases of any of those accused of crimes under the toppled regime end up in court.
The new government has told Syrians not to take matters into their own hands, after videos of brutal summary justice against former officials began to circulate.
There were also raids and arrests – and some of those who managed to escape across the border to Lebanon or Iraq were returned.
A major question remains, however, as to whether the justice system – long an instrument of repression – is capable of being reconfigured to take on the enormous moral and logistical challenge.
High in the mountains above Damascus, Syrians, young and old, are breathing freely for now – dazed by the cold, clean, winter air – in a place they've been barred from by security forces for more than a decade.
In the cafes and kiosks that have sprung up in the weeks since Assad's fall, they look down on the city as it unfolds beneath them — at once with its dark memories and the promise of a different future, one in which justice and accountability might be allowed to play their part.
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