Victims’ Rights to Make Representations
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.
The reference list for the poster can be provided on a separate slide. There is no word limit for the poster, as the poster should not consist of large chunks of text. Instead, the poster should be designed using a mixture of colour, graphics and text to highlight the key issues being raised by the topic chosen.
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
Victims’ Rights to Make Representations and Receive Information under the Domestic, Violence, Crime, and Victims Act 2004
Improving Victims’ Rights to Make Representations and Receive Information
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.
Further, the UK criminal justice system allows the domestic violence victims the righto restitution whereby the court orders a convicted defendant to cover the losses imposed on the victim. However, the court was less likely to endorse this statutory requirement and hence denying the victims’ the right for compensation. Such poised a mistrust of the victims towards the criminal justice system, hence leading to laxity in reporting domestic violence cases (Iliadis, 2020). For this reason, legal representation was enacted to ensure that victims’ rights are justly provided and that economic losses are compensated for, appropriately. Legal representatives usually have the interests of the victims in mind and hence would be determined to ensure that no violation of rights exists in the court proceedings especially those that disadvantage their clients.
Implementation of the Representations and Information
The implementation process involved different steps to ensure effectiveness. The steps entail consultation or collaboration with relevant stakeholders such as the UK government, UK justice department, and the crime victims. This was vital to gather substantial ideas and pre-assess potential consequences and impacts of this act in the criminal justice system. Besides, it facilitated the opportunity for these stakeholders to understand the relevant tenets associated with legal representation to make informed decisions (Kirchengast, 2013). The consultation also helped to eliminate potential conflicts of interest by certain parties at the expense of the weak parties. The other step entailed tailoring the representations and information to fit the needs of the victims. Notably, the policies that concern the victims should direly mean to meet the needs of the victims. The focus is predominantly to achieve justice and social support to the victims of domestic violence. In this regard, the second step majored to shape the policy to circumnavigate the concerns of the un-addressed concerns of the victims.
The third step was to make this act realistic by gathering the relevant resources. The implementation process requires sufficient time and personnel by both the criminal justice system and the government to have it function. According to Kirchengast (2013), adoption of a policy requires that the government credibly embraces and enacts the relevant procedures. In other words, this was the development stage whereby the stakeholders had to drive a change in the criminal justice system and allow the victims the rights to access legal representation and receive information appropriately. Endorsing the Representations and Information in the violence, crime and victims Act 2004 was the final step. This involved publicising it and ensuring that people understood it and embraced it as new legislation, valid for utilisation. Various publications of the code were made available to the public in an attempt to spread its actualisation.
Impact of the Representations and Information on Victims and/or Witnesses
The introduction of the Representations and Information depicted a remarkable milestone in improving the rights of the victims. The section addresses victims’ procedural needs for information, justice, control, information, and validation. For instance, in cases of sexual harassment, the legal representative tests the validation for the application to cross-examine the victim on their preceding history of sexual engagement and reinforce the justification of the application with the court more intensively than would have been if the victim was not legally represented through counter-argument that reinforces the application and its significance to the case (Iliadis, 2020). Such provides the victims a better position or opportunity to traverse through the case proceedings accurately to attain legal justice. Consequently, the victim holds the representative accountable in defending their interests and rights to privacy, through legal procedures better than they would, individually (Heywood, Sammut & Bradbury-Jones, 2019). As such, the victims benefit in attaining a greater voice unlike traditionally when they had limited input in their case following their role as witnesses.
Representations and information also provides a better control of the legal proceedings to the victims over their case. Such follows the representatives’ ability to counteract the argument to endorse the history of violence bestowed on the victim; as the judge upholds the counter-argument, the victim experiences a sense of agency and control in the process (Decker, 2021). Besides, in case the defender adduces the victim’s violence experience’s history through their argument, the victim’s idea of being heard through their representative enhances their sense of control and sovereignty throughout the proceedings.
Further, domestic violence and especially sexual harassment induce embarrassment and loss of dignity to the victim. For this reason, chapter 2 benefits the victims by ensuring their privacy is protected. The representatives takes full responsibility for following up on the matter in court, and hence the victims do not necessarily have to appear in the proceedings. Such ensures that they remain anonymous, ensuring privacy and dignity protection (Decker, 2021). Indeed, the chapter initiates the necessary defensive barrier between the victim and the indiscriminate use of prior domestic violence questioning of experiences.
Generally, the representations and information were a vital aspect considering the benefits it presents to the victims. Such attributes to the increase in access to information to the victims the implementation presented, providing a greater sense of the need to report such matter to authorities. Increasing the victims’ participation in the proceedings was the dire focus of this chapter and this was achieved as victims experiences a better opportunity for achieving procedural justice. This strengthens their experience as candid accomplices rather than meager witnesses.
Barriers to Implementation
One of the barriers to implementation of Part 3, Chapter 2 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, is failure to report cases of violence. According to Hanmer and Itzin (2013), there are a variety of domestic violence cases that are not reported in the UK. The fact that most of the people who engage in the vice happen to be close to victims, most probably their family members, it is a bit difficult for victims to come out and report such cases. They tend to fear the implications of reporting such cases, especially in cases where they depend on the offenders (Huntley et al., 2019). The failure to report such cases has made it difficult for the implementers of the law to identify violators and making them responsible for their actions. In fact, it is not possible to implement an act where there are no victims complaining of any violation.
Financial restriction is another key challenge for the implementation of the act (Dodd, 2020). Notably, with many people failing to report domestic violence and crime cases, it is ideal for government to deploy more enforcers in the society. This will be key in identifying any form of violence and taking the right measures as outlined in the act. However, as it is now, there are a few people who are responsible for the enforcement of the act due to limitation in the budget allocated to the sector. This is has contributed to difficulties in noting domestic violence cases and enforcement of the law. Besides, there are a lot of people who are not aware about the act; hence, not developing the need to report such cases. The government lacks enough resources to create awareness programs sensitising people on the existence of the act and the need for victims to report any cases associated with domestic violence.
Unwillingness of the victims to cooperate is another barrier limiting the application of part 3 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. In court of law, victims require to cooperate with law enforcers for the perpetrators to be charged for their actions (Hanmer&Itzin, 2013). However, in most cases, the victims do not support the enforcers in the case until the end. The offenders of the law being family members, with time the victims tend to sort the issue at family level, thereby requesting for the withdrawal of domestic violence related cases. This has greatly limited the law enforcers’ commitment to implement the act.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The provision of representations and information chapter in the Domestic, Violence, Crime, and Victims Act 2004 provides a significant milestone towards improving the rights of the victims in the confrontational criminal justice system in UK. The report highlighted crucial tenets of this chapter in relation to enhancing victims’ experiences in the court proceedings. The key factors that led to the development, implementation and impact on victims of this chapter were discussed in details. The benefits of this chapter to the victims highlighted in the report included strengthening their voice and autonomy throughout the court process. Besides, legal presentations plays a crucial role in protecting the privacy and dignity of the victims of domestic violence.
Recommendations to improve representations and information include providing education to the public about their legal rights in case they fall victims of domestic violence. Notably, some victims of violence may hesitate to push matters to the court for fear of victimisation, intimidation, and their attempt to protect privacy. However, pinpointing the role of the legal representatives empowers the victims to report the matters, an approach that seeks to minimise cases of domestic violence in UK society. Emphasising on these rights accords a sense of care and agency to the existing victims and encourages more victims to report these cases, with the assurance that justice would be served.
The law enforcers should increase awareness of the act among the people. Notably, there are a lot of people who do not realise that they can sue their family members for cases of domestic violence. The government require collaborating with various like-minded organisations and embracing awareness programs. This will be key in sensitising people on their rights and the need to reports cases of domestic violence. Equally, people will be sensitised regarding the need to pursue domestic cases without withdrawing them, as this is among the challenges of implementing the act in the UK. By being informed, many people can stand against domestic violence, thereby promoting the creation of a better society.
References
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Decker, C. (2021). Reform and ‘modernisation’of legal services in England and Wales: motivations, impacts and insights for the OECD PMR Indicators.
Dodd, V. (2020). Police in England and Wales facing ‘new era of austerity’. the Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/01/police-warn-of-cuts-to-funding-even-worse-than-in-austerity-years.
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Mulvihill, N., Gangoli, G., Gill, A. K., & Hester, M. (2019). The experience of interactional justice for victims of ‘honour’-based violence and abuse reporting to the police in England and Wales. Policing and Society, 29(6), 640-656.