Reconciliation of the victim and the perpetrator as a basis for discontinuance of criminal proceedings in light of the draft amendment of the Criminal Law Codification Committee

Abstract

The paper discusses the proposal to add article 59a to the Criminal Code of the following wording: ‘At the victim’s request, criminal proceedings regarding an offence punishable with imprisonment not exceeding 5 years may be discontinued if, before the commencement of judicial proceedings in the first instance the perpetrator has reconciled with his victim in the course of, in particular, mediation, and redressed the damage or otherwise provided compensation.’ The proposed amendments give rise to a number of controversies. In particular, a question may be asked whether reconciliation of the perpetrator and the victim is sufficient to determine that the former need not be punished. The paper is an attempt to evaluate the proposal put forward by the Codification Committee.