Victims’ Rights to Make Representations
Students are required to choose a specific victim-centred policy, piece of legislation or reform, aimed at improving the rights, support and/or services provided to victims of crime. The purpose of the poster is to identify the key factors that have contributed to the development of the reform, including the underpinning theoretical perspectives, the role of interest groups, the political context, and an understanding of the aims and objectives of the reform, including any potential barriers to its implementation. This will help students to develop their knowledge and understanding of contemporary and often controversial debates relating to victims’ rights, and the often competing theoretical perspectives that underpin them. It will also assist in raising students’ awareness of the importance of balancing both the rights of the victim and the offender, and the inherent difficulties in attempting to satisfy both elements in order for justice to be seen to be achieved.
Students should draw upon the feedback received on their posters to inform and assist them in developing a critical examination of the subject chosen for their essay.
(3): 3,000 word (+/- 10%) – Essay
For the essay, students are required to develop further an issue related to the topic chosen for their poster and to develop their own essay title/question. This will enable students to provide a greater critical analysis of the topic chosen and, in particular, to critically assess the key factors that have contributed to the development of the reform, its implementation, its impact on victims and/or witnesses, and any barriers to its aims and objectives being achieved. Students will be required to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the reform chosen and to draw upon a range of relevant sources, including literature, research, policies and legislation.
Introduction
Representation and information are in part 3, chapter 2 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, which was enacted to allow the victims’ rights and reposition as participants and not bystanders in the UK justice system. The UK criminal justice system has faced precedent challenges in administering justice to citizens, including prisoner mental health, funding uncertainty, and improper freedom to victims’ rights. However, the government commits to enhancing these systems and ensuring a fair and just administration of services to its citizens. Such include providing the victims’ rights for better treatment by putting these rights on a proper statutory footing. It also entails compliance mechanism, monitoring, and holding agencies accountable in laying out the role of victims’ rights in law while establishing a single unified victims’ complaints system. This paper discusses various tenets of legal representations and information to ensure that victims access their rights and administer justice effectively. The majority of UK citizens remain unaware of their rights to representation and information. In this regard, it is impeccable to improve the representation and receive information act by highlighting and illuminating more light on relevant areas. Such include creating awareness, increasing victims’ rights, and allowing legal representation of the victim based on specific conditions such as health crises or agreed terms.
The Importance of Improving Representations and Information
According to Miers (2019), victims have experienced a marginalised role as third party in the criminal trial. The UK criminal justice system has assumed a near-monopoly state pf affairs during the 19th century regarding detection, prosecution, detention, and disposal of criminals. This allowed unlawful infringement of their autonomy which warranted the state condemnation through the criminal trial. In this regard, the victims’ principal role remained solely to provide evidence supporting the crime. Third parties were denied the rights to present their case for recognition of losses and injuries sustained for reward (Miers, 2019). Any attempt to satisfy these concerns by the judiciary was treated as a matter of the victim’s legal action against the offender. Considerably, few people were informed of their rights and hence would subdue their efforts to attain proper justice by following the court decisions without the opportunity to express their concerns.
Consequently, it was critical to empower the representations and information received from the victim. The provision of legal representation minimises secondary victimisation that victims may experience following their interactions with the criminal justice system. Victims usually navigate through loneliness, dissatisfaction, and secondary victimisation as they pursue their justice (Decker, 2021). Such kind of humiliation can be substantially ameliorated upon allowing victims to access legal representation by an advisor who portrays the victim’s best interests and who has experience in the procedures and language commonly used in the criminal justice system. Besides, the victims would also benefit by ensuring that the concerned agencies, including the police, are held accountable for meeting the standards set to protect and support the victims. In this case, the legal representative would play the role of accessing the necessary information on behalf of the victim while acting as the central point of contact (Coy & Kelly, 2019). Such incorporates and satisfies the victim’s need to challenge the decisions made by the criminal justice agencies to attain the most effective decision. Further, the laws of procedural fairness assert that victims deserve consideration in the proceedings since they are substantially affected. Protecting these victims’ interests is effectively achieved by providing them with legal aid to secure a legal representation. Such is vital to ensure the victims acquire better support to provide evidence in court while protecting them against the over-zealous questioning by the defense counsel.
Strategies to Improve Representation and Information
For many victims, the criminal justice appears as a complex process to understand and comprehend. For this reason, it is important to implement strategies that improve legal representation to ensure that appropriate are followed in serving justice in the court trial (Agmon, 2021). These strategies include informing the society of the role of the legal representatives. Legal representatives poise as interlocutors for victims in the court proceedings and explain the procedures to the victims while advising them on their rights. Additionally, providing statutory entitlement to access independent and free legal advice is a vital strategy. For instance, when the victim’s right to confidentiality is threatened following unjustified data requests by prosecutors, policy or courts, the victims should be allowed to access free legal representation. Notably, representatives usually have the knowledge of court language and are aware of the kind of information to disclose and which to withhold. In this regard, it is vital that victims are legally represented in court to eliminate possible manipulation in the courtroom.
The Role of Legal Representatives
Legal representatives play a critical role in pursuing justice for the victims while providing relevant information to them. The interests of the victims differ from those of the accused and more diffuse. Victims of domestic violence would seemingly seek to provide evidence in a safe place and narrate their experiences, differently from what the prosecution seek to elicit from them (Kirchengast, 2013). Besides, they are more interested to see the crimes in the case perfectly dealt with by the court that attaches significance to the various forms of victimisation. Representatives play the role of ensuring these concerns are pinpointed and appropriately handled while informing the victims of the proceedings. The representatives also ensure a reparative process to unleash the specifics of the harm they suffered and victimisation experienced thereof.
Additionally, legal representatives may be in different regions with their clients and may not physically meet each other. As such, another role entails providing general advice to victims regarding their rights and helping them to organise into similar groups (Kirchengast, 2013). Most of the domestic victims have little knowledge about their rights under the statue and the legal representatives play the role of informing them appropriately. This function befalls the representatives in as part of raising campaigns and awareness. Notably, some victims may hesitate from early proceedings due to fear following little information of how they are protected. Victims present multiple and diverse interests which poises a challenge for individual participation in the proceedings. In this case, representatives organise the victims into groups which reflect their interests to foster preconditions for effective participation.
Further, representatives are responsible for meeting the non-material needs of the victims. Beside financial compensation, victims require an expression of restitution, reparation, support and care (Milquet, 2019). These include pursuing the offenders to provide apologies to the victims, which is a therapeutic approach to curb the psychological damage experienced. Representatives also help the victims to access the case file. Case files do not readily allow access to victims especially when psychological reports are present (Hine, Bates & Wallace, 2020). Irrespective of this fact, the representatives protect the victims against psychological harm imposed on them by the criminal proceedings. Such is by ensuring the victims are heard and empower them to enhance equality in the courtroom.
Key Factors that Contributed to the Development of Representations and Information
Further, legal representation is a crucial aspect in addressing domestic violence matters. For this reason, the implementation of representations and information was influenced by various factors. Firstly, domestic violence is a common vice affecting both the literate and the illiterate. While the literate may benefit from the ability to access information and knowledge concerning legal actions against the defenders, the illiterate were significantly disadvantaged in following court proceedings to handle their matters (Milquet, 2019). In other words, the court proceedings are significantly complex making it difficult for some victims to comprehend. In this regard, some victims could report to the court without the relevant documents, making it difficult to obtain services. This initiated the need for representatives who would inform the victims of every process in the proceedings in a simpler language for understanding.
Additionally, domestic violence victims face victimisation from family members, friends and community at large. Such follows the kind of ‘shame’ associated with this violation including humiliation and depriving of one’s dignity. This hindered the probability of UK victims of domestic violence to open up and report the traumatising experiences to the relevant authorities for fear of stigmatisation (Mulvihill et al., 2019). As such, the development of representation was meant to provide a safe and conducive environment for the victims to narrate their stories and allow the law to take its course against the defendants without their individual appearance in court proceedings. This ensures that the victims’ concerns are voiced and that the pursuit of justice is ensured.