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This book examines the changing role of victims of crime in the Irish criminal process. It documents the variety of ways in which victims of crime are now being written into the criminal process discourse and practice in Ireland, while taking account of existing challenges. The book seeks to show how the justice system is emerging from hegemonic dominance and examines the conditions which have made their re-emergence possible and the commitments, practices and strategic priorities shaping this inclusionary momentum. It demonstrates how the paradigm of prosecuting and investigating crime moved from an intensely local, unstructured and victim-precipitated arrangement to a structured, adversarial, state-monopolised event where the accused was largely silenced and the victim was rendered invisible. The book documents the black-letter, technocratic details of how victims have been juridically provided for since the late 1980s in Ireland. It then focuses on service rights which complement the legal rights which victims of crime have been afforded in Ireland. The book also charts the challenges which continue to face service users, providers and the wider criminal justice sector in the delivery of services which are responsive to the needs of victims and meet increased demands under the EU Directive on Victims' Rights. Innovative policy options adopted in other jurisdictions, including the creation of an Ombudsman for Victims of Crime and measures to unify service provision within the sector, including Witness Care Units, are also explored.
This book will examine the changing role of victims of crime in the Irish criminal process. Their status has not remained static over time. Rather, it has been subject to a series of ruptures which have dramatically altered their standing. Under the pre-modern exculpatory justice system which existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where wrongdoing was understood as a personal altercation, victims were given primacy as decision makers: they could elect to leave matters rest; settle privately; or prosecute, but decide upon the charge. They were, in
adversarial nature of the Irish criminal process requires that witnesses are examined viva voce in open court. In recognition, however, of the trauma that this may impose on victims of specified sexual or violent offences (LRC, 1989 : 120–1) the legislature enacted section 13 of the Criminal Evidence Act 1992 which provides that victims, among other witnesses, can give evidence in such cases via a live television link. Evidence given by a television link must be video-recorded. In the case of victims of such offences who are under the age of 18 13 or are persons
defendant attempting to access justice (Butler & Noaks, 1992). This is certainly true in Ireland, where there has been considerable focus on interpreting in the context of correctness of procedure (Coulter, 2003; O’Brien, 2010a,b) and ‘the integrity and safety of the Irish criminal process’ (Guerin, 2004); interpreting as an integral part of constitutional and natural justice (Riordan, 2007) and access to justice (‘Concern at …’, 2005; Courts Service, annual reports, 2007; 2008); and interpreting in the context of fair trials, procedural rights and the right to