“Whatever the crime – a mugging, robbery, home break-in, assault, rape, harassment, hate crime, terrorist attack, or human trafficking –, all victims share the same basic needs: to be recognised and treated with respect and dignity, receive protection and support for their physical integrity and their property, and have access to justice and compensation.”
Unfortunately, governments still do not provide universal services to meet these basic needs. The services vary within countries and between countries. So police may or may not listen to victims or provide them with information on services available. Services as basic as support from a trained volunteer or assistance from a professional rape crisis worker may or may not be available. Court orders of restitution and state payments of compensation to victims of violence vary from country to country. Victims may have a right to a lawyer paid by the state in some countries but not in others.
The European Union (EU) now has the power to remedy many of these problems because it has been empowered to legislate rights for victims of crime for all of the countries who are members of the EU. As a first step, the EU has proposed rules so that all these countries have minimum standards on rights, support and protection for crime victims.
This new law will ensure victims get:
- the recognition and the respect they deserve
- the same level of protection, support and access to justice throughout the EU, no matter where in the EU they come from or live.
One of the universal realities of efforts to get victims their rights is that governments have not invested the funds, constitutional revisions or the good governance to ensure that all victims will get the services and rights announced in legislation. So it is impressive to see that the EU will follow up with other legislative proposals to ensure that victims’ rights actually are upheld in practice.
In Canada and the USA, we see the first step of bills of rights, but without the second step of ensuring that they are implemented. So we will be watching the EU to see if they do indeed go to the next step in a way that gets rights “upheld in practice”. Read more at
