RIGHTS OF VICTIMS IN THE APPLICATION OF NORMS OF TERMINATION OF CRIMINAL CASES RELATED TO CONCILIATION OF DISPUTES

Termination of the criminal case is one of the essential acts of criminal proceedings. The goals of individual protection from illegal or unfounded charge, conviction, restriction of rights and freedom are achieved by termination of the criminal case. This act completes not only conduct of preliminary investigation but conduct of the entire criminal case in general. This act determines the fate of a person involved in this case as the accused or suspect in the course of the criminal proceedings. However the issue of termination of the criminal case related to conciliation of disputes refers to the victim’s rights and deserves independent consideration.

In Russia there has been and there is theoretical development and implementation of peaceful and compromise forms of criminal conflicts resolution into criminal legal procedure. These are the conflicts emerging as a result of the crimes of moderate and average severity, i.e. those stipulating punitive measure up to five years of prison for intentional cats, or imprudent acts that inflict punishment of more than three years of prison. Such form of termination of criminal or legal conflict secures victim’s right to quick indemnification and releases the victim form the necessity of further participation in legal proceedings due to termination of the criminal case, and substantially releases the victim of stress in the course of investigation and court proceeding.

Settlement of criminal and legal conflicts in a peaceful way allows the government to save human resources, time and finance necessary for conduct of criminal proceedings. However such procedure can have negative nature when the victim is exposed to threats and enforcement for “reconciliation” on the part of the people interested in termination of the case.

The article considers some of the controversial issues of the Russian criminal proceedings related to possible extension of conciliation procedures (mediation) at different stages of criminal proceedings. The author suggests some possible alterations of the criminal procedure legislation.