Elements of restorative justice in criminal proceedings

Introduction: the article is aimed at the analysis of reputable and qualified public members involvement in the sphere of criminal proceedings and in the resolution of criminal conflicts through mediation under control of the court in foreign countries, especially those with the Anglo-Saxon law system. In the United States and other common law countries, restorative justice has demonstrated some good results. Restorative justice considers an offence not only as violation of the law, but primarily the victim's rights violation. It also sees it as a wrongdoing, stating that the offence was committed not so much against public order and the State, but as trespass to the person. Restorative justice is aimed not only at punishing the offender and compensating for damages caused to the victim, but also, to a certain extent, at the offender's correc tion. It is generally recognized that incarceration does not correct the accused, and it can aggravate the vices of the individual in many cases. Restorative justice is able to avoid such issues. Not accidentally, the application of restorative justice programs, including these in the criminal process, is recommended by a number of international legal norms, especially in resolution of criminal cases against minors. In our country, the attitude to juvenile justice is ambiguous. However, this circumstance does not give the grounds to ignore the practice of the USA and other countries and gradually implement the elements of restorative justice that are acceptable to our criminal procedure. Purpose: to analyze the formation of the restorative justice paradigm, as well as the current practice of restorative justice programs in the countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal system, to identify some positive practices and substantiate the proposals for the consolidation of restorative justice programs in criminal procedure of the Russian Federation. Methods: there were used the dialectical, historical, comparative legal, system-structural, and logical-legal methods. Results: It is concluded that there is necessity for legislative consolidation of the possibility of the restorative justice programs use in criminal procedure of the Russian Federation. It is proposed to introduce relevant amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.