Conflicts of victims’ interests and offenders’ rights in the criminal justice system- a European perspective.

Source: (1996) In International victimology: Selected papers from the 8th International Symposium – proceedings of a symposium held in Adelaide, 21-26 August 1994, ed. by Chris Sumner, Mark Israel, Michael O-Connell, and Rick Scarre, 163-176. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.

In recent years, the interests of victims have risen to the fore in many respects in the criminal justice system. At the same time, Groenhuijsen remarks, it is not clear how the inclusion of victims’ interests in the criminal justice process relates to the legal status of offenders or people accused of a crime in that same process. Two sorts of answers to this issue have emerged. One, some hold that too much attention has been paid to the legal rights of the accused. Two, some hold that there is no conflict between victims’ rights and offenders’ rights; in fact, the rights of both coincide. In this context, Groenhuijsen argues that there is no simple, straightforward, “either/or�? answer. The two sets of rights need to be differentiated to find areas of commonality and elements of conflict that cannot be denied or easily resolved.