Protection of crime victims by legal means: International and European law and policy

The article addresses the development of international and European policy in relation to victims of crime. It starts with an outline of the 1985 United Nations (UN) Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power. It demonstrates that compliance by Member States with the provisions of the Declaration is still unsatisfactory, despite serious efforts by the UN to promote its standards and norms. A similar trend is described on a regional level in Europe. In 2001, the European Union adopted a Framework Decision (a legally binding instrument) on minimum rights for crime victims in the criminal justice system. This document brought some improvement to victims and their position compared to the UN Declaration, particularly in terms of limit repeated questioning, advanced informational rights, reimbursement of expenses and construction of court facilities. Nevertheless, evaluations undertaken in 2004 and 2009 have proved that none of the Member States fully complied with its content. This document was replaced with the new one - the EU Directive on establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. It is stronger instrument than the Framework Decision and it includes more demanding standards. But, its implementation needs to be monitored. Therefore, in the presentation it is argued that a lack of compliance is usually followed by the adoption of an even stronger legal instrument, containing even more ambitious rights for victims of crime. It is questioned whether this is the most productive approach. It is doubted that “hard law” is always more effective than “soft law”. The most recent generation of more elevated rights run the risk of leading to “victim fatigue” on the part of the officials responsible for the operation of the criminal justice system