protection and redress for victims of crime and human rights violations

Chapter 15 • Protection and Redress for Victims of Crime and Human Rights ViolationsThe recommendations relating to the first seven of these stages of theadministration of criminal justice will be dealt with in the appropriate context below.On the other hand, this chapter will not discuss conflict resolution and the promotionof further research in that area. It should be noted, however, that mediation betweenoffender and victim may, especially in the case of relatively minor crimes, be aninteresting way of pursuing justice and dealing with anti-social behaviour. However, theadvantages and disadvantages of resorting to conflict resolution schemes in the field ofcriminal justice is a multi-dimensional discussion that lies beyond the scope of thischapter.2.2 The notion of victimAccording to paragraph 1 of the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice forVictims of Crime and Abuse of Power, the term “victims”“means persons who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm,including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic loss orsubstantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts oromissions that are in violation of criminal laws operative within MemberStates, including those laws proscribing criminal abuse of power”.This definition covers many categories of harm sustained by people as aconsequence of criminal conduct, ranging from physical and psychological injury tofinancial or other forms of damage to their rights, irrespective of whether the injury ordamage concerned was the result of positive conduct or a failure to act.Quite importantly, according to paragraph 2 of the Declaration a person maybe considered a victim “regardless of whether the perpetrator is identified,apprehended, prosecuted or convicted and regardless of the familial relationshipbetween the perpetrator and the victim”. According to the same article:“The term ‘victim’ also includes, where appropriate, the immediate familyor dependants of the direct victims and persons who have suffered harm inintervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent victimization.”Lastly, as pointed out in subsection 2.1.1 above, the provisions of theDeclaration, in full consistency with the principle of equality and the prohibition ofdiscrimination under international human rights law dealt with in Chapter 13 of thisManual, are, according to paragraph 3, applicable to all, without distinction of any kindon the grounds enumerated in the paragraph or on other grounds.*****The European Convention on the Compensation of Victims of ViolentCrimes contains no explicit definition of the notion of “victim” and, as made clear bythe title, its framework is somewhat limited in that it obliges the State to providecompensation to victims of crime only when “compensation is not fully available fromother sources”. Moreover, only the following two categories of victim may qualify forcompensation:756 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers