Criminal Reconciliation System

In the course of constructing a harmonious society, any systems conducive to settling social dispute and maintaining social stability should be valued. In order to make up for the defects and deficiencies in criminal law system in safeguarding the victim’s lawful rights and interests and transforming and remolding the injuring party, it is an inevitable choice to introduce victim-offender meditation system to China. But how shall we transform those deeply rooted western traditional cultural elements and make them dovetail into the special national conditions of China so as to form a criminal law system with Chinese characteristics to solve the practical problems of China? It is the very subject and issue this paper is working at.People from Academic circles and practice field hold different views of the implications of the victim-offendertion meditation, while this paper holds the idea that victim-offendertion meditation does not mean "to reconcile criminally", but it is a dynamic category, and exists in the five aspects as follows:the law of history, ideological concept, criminal policy, system and practice. It has different implications in different contexts. The paper focuses on the victim-offender mediation existing as a legal system and makes a complete and detailed comparison and contrast between victim-offender mediation and compounding a felony, victim-offender mediation and plea bargaining, victim-offender mediation and restorative justice, victim-offender mediation and mediation, victim-offender mediation and parallel justice, victim-offender mediation and redeeming from punishment by paying a ransom.As a new type of criminal legal system, victim-offender mediation embodies a synthetic value orientation, which does not simply pursue justice or merely pursue benefit, but pay attention to benefit while pursuing justice for the purpose of safeguarding human rights. There are three values existing in the victim-offender mediation system, such as promoting the realization of justice, enhancing the benefit of litigation and safeguarding human rights. For the victim-offender mediation system, promoting the realization of justice is the principal value, enhancing the benefit of litigation the social value and safeguarding human rights the ultimate value, three of which are indispensable and construct a complete victim-offender mediation value system together with each other.The basis of theory remains the focus of attention of the victim-offender mediation research all the time. The equity theory, narrative theory and restorative justice have been universally accepted as academic common views, proposed by American criminologist, John R. Gehm, in his book, Victim-Offender Mediation Programs:An Exploration of Practice and Theoretical Frameworks. It is comparatively late to implement victim-offender mediation system in China, but still it does not mean we just mechanically imitate the western countries. Instead, besides the absorption of the rational elements existing in the western victim-offender mediation system and the affection of the national traditional culture of harmony, the construction and development of victim-offender mediation system and practice attribute directly to the proposal of the policy of temper justice with mercy from the perspective of building a harmonious society. Criminology, criminal policy science, criminal victimology, the merciful idea of Christianity and the culture of harmony of Confucianism all constitute the basis of the theory of victim-offender mediation system.system has undergone a very long historical process. To some extent, the history of the development of victim-offender mediation system just shows the historical changes of the approaches of solving dispute, which can be divided into three stages:the germination, the stagnation and the initial formation of the modern victim-offender mediation system. From the perspectives of America, Britain, New Zealand, Russia, Finland, France, Japan and Germany, which are all well-developed in this field, this paper makes a brief introduction to how the victim-offender mediation operates globally by means of the approach of historical observation. The victim-offender mediation system in the eight countries mentioned above can basically stand for its practice and tendency of development all over the world, from which we can learn some lessons about the lawful regulation, application stages and scope, participants and so on while constructing our victim-offender mediation system.Participants are the foremost element in the victim-offender mediation system, which are indispensable for carrying out the victim-offender mediation system. In this paper, there is a preliminary design of all the participants involved in the victim-offender mediation system such as litigants, countries, communities, people’s mediation commission and so on, their positions and functions in the practice of victim-offender mediation and their locations in the victim-offender mediation system as well.After entry into the21st century, with a sustained growth of economy and a continuous increasing of the awareness of human rights, many conflicts less prominent in the past appear much fiercer nowadays, and pose a threat to the social stability and the national further development. After a fruitless modification of the traditional legal system, it is inevitable to introduce victim-offender mediation system to China as a sound system justified by practices.Since2001, some scholars from mainland of China have begun to introduce the western victim-offender mediation system to China. But at the very beginning, the public including a part of experts have some misunderstanding of it. This situation has begun to change since2004. Following the implement of the policies of constructing a harmonious society and temper justice with mercy, scholars have accomplished a large number of articles about victim-offender mediation, and Beijing, Shanghai, Hunan and some other places have made a vigorous practice of it, which have opened up a way to the establishment of victim-offender mediation system in China. The characteristics of the victim-offender mediation practice in China during the current period are as follows:1. The construction of a harmonious society is boosting the rise of victim-offender mediation experiments in some selected places;2.The canonical documents define its scope of application, and there is a breakthrough in legal practice;3. People’s Procuratorate is in the leading position. Though there are some achievements in the job of victim-offender mediation in China, there still exist some problems, which mainly appear in two aspects:a lack of some relevant legal regulations and a general low rate of application of victim-offender mediation.It is time to construct victim-offender mediation system in China:the global movements of victim-offender mediation supply some rich experience from abroad; the national experiments in some selected places lay a solid foundation of practice; the construction of a harmonious society makes a stable social environment; the traditional culture of harmony provides an cultural assurance of deep level. The construction of our national victim-offender mediation system can be fulfilled in two steps:first, to enact a complete legal regulations; second, to build and improve those systems complementary to the victim-offender mediation. To enact the law and regulations of victim-offender mediation in China, we should make sure the following tasks:its leagal positions, preconditions, scopes of application and applied cases, participants, approaches, applied stages, ways of achieving mediation, dealing with going back on one’s words and so on. Besides, it is also necessary to establish and improve the national compensation system and the supervision mechanism, which can guarantee the victim-offender mediation system functions fully and make sure the existing laws and regulations of victim-offender mediation could be fully carried out.Currently, there appears a new tendency of the development of victim-offender mediation in China----to combine with the mechanism of "three mediation linkage". After a serious investigation of the mechanism of "three mediation linkage", Hunan People’s Procuratorate formally proposed to bring victim-offender mediation system into mechanism of "three mediation linkage". With the help of the widely-spread system of mediation organizations, make a full use of the mechanism of "three mediation linkage" in solving and coordinating social conflicts to promote the establishment and implement of the negotiation of victim-offender mediation. Through the development of the victim-offender mediation system, make a further improvement of the dovetail of the mechanism of "three mediation linkage" to realize " settling disputes and coordinating conflicts" in a true sense. The combination of victim-offender mediation system and mechanism of "three mediation linkage" provide us with a new concept of the development of the mechanism of settling disputes in China.