Minister of Justice Jiří Pospíšil is aiming to improve the protection of children in criminal proceedings - Justice 2009

Minister of Justice Jiří Pospíšil is aiming to improve the protection of children in criminal proceedings on both the Czech and European levels

Criminal-law experts from all over the European Union came to Prague to discuss hearings of children and other vulnerable victims and the admissibility of their testimony as an evidence in criminal proceedings, as well as many other questions which might also inspire the new Czech Criminal Procedure Code. The international conference on "Protection of vulnerable victims and their standing in criminal proceedings" is being held by the Ministry of Justice between 17 -18 March 2009 in the Prague Congress Centre.

The conference provides a great chance to share experiences with the current enactment of the protection of vulnerable victims, e.g. children, the handicapped, and home violence victims, and to discuss possible improvements within the EU. "This Conference may help with setting the base of the future protection of vulnerable victims in the Czech Republic which should project also into a recodification of criminal proceedings," stated Jiří Pospíšil.

The Draft Criminal Procedure Code establishes measures inspired by foreign codes pertaining for example to a subsidiary complaint of an injured party, i.e. the possibility to have certain decisions made by a prosecutor reviewed on the basis of a complaint. A private complaint of the injured is also being considered and new preliminary measures to be inflicted already during the criminal proceedings are proposed. In accordance with the European law, compensation rights for the victims of criminal offences should also be broadened. "In addition to the compensation for the material loss we want to define that victims can seek compensation for a moral loss as well," Pospíšil said.

In only two weeks, the Amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code will come into effect the aim of which is to better protect the personality and privacy of victims of criminal offences, as well as to reduce as much as possible the area of information provided to the public about victims and to prevent the publication of their personal data, photographs or other visual records. The Amendment focuses above all on victims under 18 years of age and victims of criminal offences as e.g. rape, sexual abuse, soliciting trafficking in human beings and diffusion of pornography. There is also a new possibility to punish legal entities. From 2012 there should also be a new Code on victims of criminal offences. "The law should comprehensively regulate for example the support for victims of criminal offences and protection of their personal data, including the protection of privacy and personal safety, protection against secondary victimisation, as well as informing and compensating the victims of criminal offences. The enactment of material support should be broadened to also include psychological and social support," stated the author of Amendment to this Code, Tomáš Gřivňa, from the Criminal Law Department of the Faculty of Law at the Charles University in Prague.

The Czech legislation could find inspiration for the future in the countries which have a rich and verificated practice in this area. "We have particularly been sharing experience concerning child victims with other delegates and we have derived valuable suggestions from their national legal systems," explained Jiří Pospíšil.

In many EU Member States children can be heared as victims or witnesses of criminal offences via videoconferencing from outside the courtroom, elsewhere children are heared via videoconferencing even directly from home. Also, for example in Sweden, the hearing of a child can not last more than three hours and in Finland a vulnerable victim is entitled to a free legal aid without regard to his/her financial situation.

According to the European Commission, the discussion at the Prague conference and the exchange of experience among individual states could also contribute toward unification of regulation of the protection of children and vulnerable victims within the EU. "We are now preparing two Decisions which will contain specific provisions on the protection of vulnerable victims within the EU. We really appreciate that the Czech Presidency tries to push these matters ahead," stated the Head of the Criminal Justice Unit of the European Commission Peter-Jozsef Csonka.

Also in the Czech Republic special hearing rooms exist for children, modified and equipped in order to evoke a relaxing atmosphere and not to traumatize the child, whereas their monitoring audio and video technology enable a high-quality record of hearing. Thanks to the "Programme of establishment of special hearing rooms for child victims and witnesses" of the Ministry of the Interior, 17 special hearing rooms were newly established or renovated in 2007. They are located at selected Criminal Police and Investigation Services of the Czech Republic and are intended for hearings in the pre-trial proceedings.

Martina Kvašová,

Spokesperson for the Czech EU Presidency