Case Studies

Call for victims’ rights

by Mark Rowe

Victims of crime in England and Wales continue to feel marginalised and peripheral to the criminal trial process. We need to see victims as valued participants and support them accordingly, according to the Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird QC.

She says: “Acknowledging the reality that victims are participants in the criminal justice process and contribute to it should reinvigorate criminal justice agencies to observe their rights. It is a designation designed to give victims more centrality in the process whilst, of course, leaving the prosecution and defence as the only parties in the case. Victims are participants from the start to the finish, but they are currently treated more like bystanders.”

This forms one of several recommendations included in a report by the non-governmental organisation Sisters for Change. Their 120-page report examines the role and rights of victims across England and Wales, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The authors, Jane Gordon and Alison Gordon say that despite progress by governments over the years, victims continue to feel marginalised and peripheral to the criminal trial process.

The report provides examples of how participant status can enhance treatment of victims, including the ‘Victim’s Right of Review’. This is the right to ask for a review of a decision taken either by the Police or CPS which puts an end to a case, commonly a decision not to charge. Currently, there is no duty on either the CPS or the Police to invite the victim to make representations.

In contrast, the authors cite the example of the 2015 Victoria Law Reform Commission in Australia, which recommended that the role and rights of the victim as participant in the criminal justice process should be laid out in law.

The State of Victoria moved to legally recognise the victim as participant in 2018. It is acknowledged in law that the victim has an ‘inherent interest’ in the response by the criminal justice system and agencies are required to respect the rights and entitlements of victims as participants in proceedings. The State of Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions is also required to take all reasonable steps to advise a victim on details and progress of criminal proceedings, seek a victim’s views regarding modifying or discontinuing charges, and provide reasons for decisions to a victim.

The authors call on the UK’s Ministry of Justice to employ the same approach to underpin its development of a Victims’ Law for England & Wales.

Victims of crime in England and Wales are accorded rights to information and support and limited procedural rights in the revised Victims’ Code, but these rights are not enforceable and are only patchily delivered, according to the report.

Vera Baird says: “Acknowledging the true position of victims as participants in the criminal justice process would prompt a long overdue cultural change across the criminal justice system, where victims’ rights are not viewed as an optional extra, but a key part of how we deliver overall justice. Victims’ rights are not a challenge to the defence, nor should they be a challenge to deliver. They include help to understand the process, updates on their case, respectful treatment, procedural justice and support as and when it is needed – and a voice when it matters. I thank Sisters for Change for this immensely stimulating work, which will influence the design of outcomes for victims for many years ahead.”

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