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- Title
Enforceable Rights for Victims of Crime: Shifting the State/Offender Paradigm in Adversarial Systems of Criminal Law and Justice.
- Authors
Kirchengast, Tyrone
- Abstract
Criminal law and justice has long been identified as a prerogative of the state. However, as we emerge into the twenty-first century, many common law jurisdictions have challenged the state monopoly on crime and justice by affording victims' rights that may be enforced against the state or defendant in the criminal prosecution process. Certain common law jurisdictions now allow for the representation of the victim in the pre-trial and sentencing phases of the criminal trial, in addition to other rights, such as access to an enforceable charter of rights and an evolving law of evidence that is increasingly seeking to protect vulnerable and intimidated witnesses. Drawing from the rise of private counsel for victims, this article considers the rise of enforceable rights for victims as a trend that directly challenges the conceptualisation of criminal law and justice as singularly 'public'. The recognition that criminal law and procedure now accommodates the interests of the victim provides for a reassessment of the characterisation of criminal law as state control by another name.
- Subjects
CRIMINAL justice system; CRIMINAL law; VICTIMS' rights; VICTIMS of state-sponsored terrorism; EVIDENCE
- Publication
Pandora's Box (1835-8624), 2015, p25
- ISSN
1835-8624
- Publication type
Article