Uridičeskaâ Nauka i Pravoohranitelʹnaâ Praktika (Dec 2014)

Prospects of applying mediation in the Russian criminal proceeding based on international experience

  • Kabelkov S.N.

Journal volume & issue
no. 4(30)
pp. 190 – 194

Abstract

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Western states have recently come to the conclusion that counteraction to crimes cannot be successful when applying only repressive methods. A new concept of paradigm of “reconstructive justice”, being a polar alternative of punitive justice, was introduced by foreign lawyers. As a result, mediation today is one of the most developing forms of resolving disputes on a global scale. Russian legal community and authorities have got interested in prospects of applying mediation in the Russian law. But effective criminal procedure legislation of the Russian Federation does not provide the necessary procedures as well as participants of criminal procedure relations which would allow to extent application of mediation within the Russian criminal procedure field. Rules relating to independent reconciliation of parties are still applied in Russian law. Main causes hindering the introduction of mediation into law enforcement practice are given. They are: 1) hesitation of Russian legislators who apply mediation only for resolving civil disputes; 2) necessity to improve the procedure of dismissing criminal case, notably: the decision should be made by court, not by investigator; 3) mediator should be included into the circle of participants in criminal proceeding and vested with certain procedural authorities. These and related problems can be overcome in case of reasonable applying the experience of the states which have solved similar problems in their national legal systems.

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