Legal base	—
Department	Justice
Basis of consideration	Minister's letter of 8 December 2009
Previous Committee Report	None
To be discussed in Council	No date set
Committee's assessment	Politically important
Committee's decision	—

The Minister's letter of 8 December

11.1  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice (Lord Bach) writes to inform the Committee of the Council's conclusions on victims of crime in the EU, which were adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 23 October. (They were sent to the Committee for information in early November, but the Minister subsequently decided to submit them "more formally".) The conclusions are a political statement. They agree that fulfilling victims' rights and improving support to victims should be given higher priority in the European Union. They also state that there is a need to agree a common strategy which will guide future work on victims, while taking into account the different legal systems of Member States and the roles of the victim in those systems. The conclusions then describe principles, factors and actions to guide future measures in relation to victims. The conclusions are therefore intended to be a basis for future EU proposals, and the Stockholm Programme now refers to the need for an integrated and co-ordinated approach to victims in line with these Conclusions.

11.2  The Minister continues that the Government strongly supports the aims and content of the conclusions, agreeing that it is important to ensure that victims' rights are respected and fulfilled, to improve support to victims, and to ensure that they are "at the heart of the criminal justice system in every Member State, whether a party to proceedings or not".

Council conclusions

11.3  A summary of the Council's conclusions is set out below.

11.4  The Council concludes that there is a need to agree on a common strategy on fulfilling the rights of and improving support to victims of crime in the EU. This strategy should be guided by the following principles:

—  the need to respect the rights of both the victim and the accused;

—  respect for and non-discrimination of persons who fall victim to crime;

—  persons who fall victim to crime should be given the possibility to request and obtain compensation, in order to relieve the harm caused to them;

—  the importance for persons who fall victim to crime to be treated properly and professionally in their contacts with representatives of the judicial and law enforcement system;

—  persons who fall victim to crime should have appropriate access to information of relevance to their case and necessary for the protection of their interests and the exercise of their rights, as far as possible in a language that they understand;

—  persons who fall victim to crime should be protected, as far as possible, from secondary and repeat victimisation;

—  persons who fall victim to crime and who are in a particularly vulnerable situation or state should be given special attention and treatment;

—  if appropriate, close family members of persons who fall victim to crime should also benefit from the assistance and protection offered to persons who fall victim to crime;

—  new or amended legislation and policies should aim at ensuring fulfilment of the rights of and improving support to victims in connection with criminal proceedings;

—  new or amended legislation and policies should be based on good practices, evaluation of existing legislation and policy and empirical knowledge.

11.5  The Council concludes that the following factors are of utmost importance for the fulfilment of the aims of this strategy, as well as for the work to prevent primary, secondary and repeat victimisation:

—  cooperation among relevant actors such as law-enforcement agencies, health and social welfare services as well as with non-governmental organisations;

—  development of applied research in order to increase knowledge on victimisation and its inherent components and to provide information for evaluation and policy decisions;

—  evaluation of existing indicators used for measuring the phenomenon, its magnitude and trends as well as, if needed, development of such indicators;

—  development of monitoring and evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness of adopted European Union legislation and policy;

—  collection of good practices on assistance and support to persons who fall victim to crime, in order to increase the knowledge of measures in practice and dissemination of such knowledge to policy makers and other relevant actors.

11.6  The Council concludes that the following actions should be undertaken in future work to fulfil the aims of this strategy:

—  further development of provision of assistance to and protection of persons who fall victim to crime;

—  further measures aiming at enhancing and facilitating possibilities for persons who fall victim to crime to claim compensation e.g. through improvement of the application of the Council Directive relating to compensation to victims of crime in cross-border situations;

—  promotion and development of the use of technical measures, where appropriate, in order to facilitate the participation of victims of crime in criminal proceedings, in accordance with the role of victims in the relevant justice system;

—  further development of victim support. Specialised services and non-governmental organisations acting at national, regional or local levels throughout the European Union should be given possibilities of offering appropriate service to persons who fall victim to crime;

—  provision of training to personnel of law-enforcement agencies, specialised services and nongovernmental organisations who in their profession or voluntary work come into contact with victims of crime;

—  further raising of public awareness of the possibilities for victims of crime to get support and advice;

—  further research on and, if appropriate, development of mediation and other restorative justice practices, while safeguarding the rights of victims of crime;

—  further development of appropriate provision of information, interpretation and translation for victims of crime in criminal proceedings.

11.7  Inter alia the Council also:

—  calls on Member States and the Commission to consider various ways of facilitating and improving the provision of information to victims of crime, in particular on their role in criminal proceedings, in all official languages of the institutions of the European Union;

—  calls on the Commission to support, by all suitable means, Member States in these efforts and, if appropriate, proceed to put forward a relevant legislative proposal or other measures;

—  underlines the importance of giving this strategy proper consideration in the framework of the Stockholm Programme; and

—  invites the Commission to co-ordinate its activities in the area of victims of crime with the work carried out by Member States and within the Council of Europe, the latter along the lines drawn up in the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and the Council of Europe.

Conclusion

11.8  We thank the Minister for sending us the Council conclusions on the protection of the rights and interests of victims of crime. But, as with the conclusions on guiding the Council's criminal law deliberations also reported this week, it is axiomatic that we are unable to scrutinise an EU initiative once adopted: we simply report it to the House.

11.9  We note that, though non-binding, the Council conclusions will be taken into account in the implementation of the Stockholm Programme and that they also contain an invitation to the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal. Consequently they are, in reality, an important EU initiative. We would therefore have wished to scrutinise them in draft form, and consider this a further example of why Council conclusions should be formally deposited in Parliament.