Reconciliation in Criminal Procedure Law

The reconciliation foundation, which is one of the applications of "restorative justice" which has put a new point of view on the understanding of criminal justice, entered the penal system of our country with Penal Code No 5237 and Criminal Procedure Code No 5271, which were accepted in 2004. In justification of the legal regulations, reaching the aims of acceleration of the process of trial by saving the jurisdiction authority from redundant work load, elimination of the damage to the victim besides lowering the costs and expenses of trial and rehabilitating the perpetrator with a sense of responsibility has been listed in the expectations from the reconciliation foundation. Today, while building a peaceful atmosphere is getting harder due to the long duration of judgement and the decrease in public's trust in justice, the basis, the aim, the conditions and the application procedure of this foundation should first be adopted in terms of realization of the expected benefit from the reconciliation foundation. It would be beneficial in terms of building a social peace not only for the parties of this relationship but for all members of society with the executives in the duration of justice if the victim and the perpetrator reconcile in order to dispel the negative situation which has arisen due to crime by expressing themselves comfortably. This study which has been prepared to reach at the benefit which is mentioned at utmost level is composed of two sections. The first section of our study consists of general information where evaluations have been done with regard to the concept of reconciliation and the historical development of vii reconciliation and the principles of criminal law. In this section, the duration of the historical development in our country has also been analysed under the impact of decisions made by the Comittee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in addition to the situation in comparative law. In the second section, the place of reconciliation in Turkish Criminal and criminal Procedure Law, the legal attribute and the topics as to the relationships with similar foundations have been researched and, then, the application conditions and procedure of reconciliation have been emphasized. Keywords: Reconciliation, Conciliation, Victim-Offender Mediation, Restorative Justice.