On Construction Of The Victim-offender Reconciliation System In Trial Stage

In recent years, along with construction of the socialist harmonious society and thorough implementation of the criminal policy that combines leniency with punishment, the victim-offender reconciliation system has obtained more importance both in the legal science circle and the practical realm because it overcomed inherent flaws of the traditional penalty and the imprisonment so as to "harmlessly" restore the justice, moreover, it gave dual attention to the legitimate rights and interests of the inflictor (as accused person in the trial stage) and of the victim. Many courts have carried on the positive exploration in reality and gained rich precious experience. The victim-offender reconciliation system initially has been given pilot study,however,as one emerging system,regardless of being perfect in the theory, the victim-offender reconciliation still needs improvement in the construction of procedure. Theoretically, it faces violation of the principle of a legally prescribed punishment for a specified crime and all people are equal before the law. In the practice, it encountered matters of lack of backup from the criminal legislation, less choice of the non-imprisonment punishments, amphibious legal effects and accused person's financial circumstance deciding to commute a sentence resulting in discretion of punishment standard. In the trial practice, the system presented the conflict of applying procedure with time limit for adjudication and the blind extension of applying scope etc, for the sake of the imperfects. Responds to the above problems and countermeasures should be put forward promptly in order to guarantee the long-term scientific development of the victim-offender reconciliation system. Based on the trial stage, introducing from elementary theory of the-victim-offender reconciliation and starting from domestic and foreign victim-offender reconciliation practice, this article utilized methods such as historic analysis, comparative analysis emphasizing the connotation, the feasibility and the programming design several aspects to erect victim-offender reconciliation system in a preliminary stage. Using the scholars' viewpoints and the courts'experience for reference, the author thought that the construction of the new system must rely on the Chinese national conditions and apply for the minor criminal cases incipiently. Theoretically speaking, we need to comply with the trend of the times and not to challenge the mental endurance of the populace, to set up the modern criminal justice ideas gradually by renewing the traditional retribution principle; In practice, the country should revise the criminal law by adding victim-offender reconciliation procedures, standardize the applicable scope and its condition, consummate the non-imprisonment punishments and sentencing, establish country's compensation fund to breach those obstacles and provide the legal foundation for the victim-offender reconciliation. I hope this article can provide People's courts beneficial assistance for establishing the unified victim-offender reconciliation system.