In this note, the authors identify some problems concerning the introduction of mediation in Ukraine in terms of its use in the consideration and resolution of court cases. Despite the lack of clear legal regulation for mediation, courts in Ukraine still try to use this mechanism of pre-trial dispute resolution. Particular attention is paid to the law enforcement activities of courts in criminal and administrative cases, in which courts try to equate the conciliation procedure with the mediation procedure. These approaches clearly follow from the Resolutions and Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the settled case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) since, back in 1975, the ECtHR in its decision Golder v. The United Kingdom ruled that it is unlikely that the rule of law can be imagined without access to justice. However, the presumption that the courts are the main institution for resolving disputes continues to be undermined by the proliferation of alternative forms of dispute resolution, both agreement-based and judicial.

Tremendous efforts of legislators are directed towards the development of an ideal judicial system and procedure of administering justice. However, current trends of judiciary reformation are easier to comprehend and accept if we turn to the origins of legal protection of human rights which, undoubtedly, go back to the Roman law. Methodology: From this point we use comparing methods for analizing the legislative provisions; the structural method and historical method was used for the background of Legal procedure in roman law. Results and conclusions: In this article we will outline the main stages of formation of legal protection of human rights in Roman law and characterize types of these processes – namely legis actiones, formulary procedure and cognitio. By analyzing the original sources that have survived to our times, namely the Law of Twelve Tables, Gaius`s Institutions and Justinian`s Digestes, we will examine what peculiarities of consideration and resolution of cases each of these stages demonstrated; how the traditional views on the behavior of the parties and the court in the process were established; which main requirements were applied to justice in civil matters in Roman law. The course of the work the following methods were used: essential, comparative, general historical.