Reporter

Do we really care about the fate of disadvantaged, disabled and robbed ones?

November 10, 2003

Situation in Lithuania

The sport games between prosecutors and the convicted persons that took place in Alytus Corrective Labour Colony few months ago provoked quite a diverse reaction of the public. There were few who considered this event as a theatricalised show that may be compared to “Miss Convicted”, others accused the public servants of excessive attention to problems of the criminals and indifference to their victims. Only a few tried to understand the importance of such untraditional psychological test to the community (beyond the barbed wire fence).

Relatives of victim start hating the guilty one as they have lost their close person. The main aim of the convicted person when he finds himself beyond the guarded fence is to survive. These two situations have a linking chain – the state with variety of types of authorities. Is the role of the state limited to solution of legal dispute, with finding out who is guilty and who is victim? Does the state pay enough attention to both parties of such a true tragedy? Is the state’s love for its citizens possible only under conditions of utopian conditions of universal welfare.

According to the information system, which has been introduced in Lithuania and which provides information collected by law enforcement and statistical authorities, more than 5,000 persons were convicted for the crimes against ownership during the six months of this year. We may only assume that a great share of these crimes resulted in material damage to the victim. Alytus Corrective Labour Colony houses 1,500 convicted persons who suffer their punishment herein. Half of them have material liabilities. Total amount of claims against them exceeds 6 million Litas. However only 3 persons voluntarily have recovered damage amounting to 184 Litas. According to the determined order this year the claimants succeeded in recovering additional 7,5% of total amount of claims. The question arises, can we expect that the disadvantaged, disabled and robbed persons will ever be recompensed?

European Experience       

Three years ago the European Committee drafted special PHARE program related to examination of problems faced by victims during the criminal procedure. Arūnas Meška, the prosecutor at the Public Charge Division of the Prosecutor General’s Office and other representatives of Lithuania for the first time participated in the studies organised in Paris within the framework of this program. Information collected by the prosecutor pushes us to carefully prepare for upcoming changes. As Lithuania has to start preparing itself for application of EU law from the next year, the said topic is important not only with regard to restoration of justice, but to efficient application of EU law also.

Provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty (signed at the intergovernmental conference in 1997) related to the area of freedom, security and justice entitled the European Committee and the Commission to draft the action plan for the five years. According to this document a plan existed to perform a comparative research of compensation and other support to the victims in the EU countries. Interim result of such a research was a communiqué Victims of Crime in the EU: Notion Related to Regulations and Actions, which was submitted to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee.

Tampere European Summit of 1999 obligated national Governments to prepare programs on providing finance to support and protect the victims of crime. Taking due account of the opinion of the European Parliament and the Portuguese initiative, the EU Council of Ministers on 15 March 2001 passed a Framework Decision on the Status of Victim in Criminal Proceedings. This decision is related to victims who may be consulted during the criminal procedure, free of charge if reasonable, who may be protected and have a right to compensation. Special role is assigned to the obligation of the state to encourage activity of victim support organisations, which are responsible for primary communication with victim and further support to them. The decision is applicable to each EU member state as well as Lithuania (from the moment of its accession).

  The new Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Lithuania grants the victim lots of rights and provides for recovery of damage. However, the question is how will these rights be implemented. Paragraph 4 Article 55 of the said Code provides that in certain situation legal assistance may be granted by the state to the victim or civil claimant free of charge. Still, in true life victims are not informed about such a possibility and they do not benefit from it.

The issue of recovering damage caused by criminal actions is the most important. In fact, we may assure only the possibility for the victim to claim recovery of damage caused by criminal actions from the culprit. The guilty person becomes obligated to recover damages, but he never does that. Situation at Alytus Corrective Labour Colony proves this tendency. Article 118 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides a possibility to recover damages to the victim in advance by using funds of the state, however this provision has not been applied yet. In spring of this year a special Fund for Victims of Crime was established at the Ministry of Justice. At the moment means in this fund are accumulated from contributions (5 to 25 Minimum standards of living) prescribed by court in accordance with Article 71 of the Criminal Code. Till today courts did not often rule to require such contributions, therefore the fund is almost “empty”. Moreover, we still have no procedure of distributing money of the fund. In majority of EU countries the budget includes special momey for compensation of damage caused to the victim (for example, in France they allocate 8 million Euros per year for this purpose).

Of course, our state is not able to guarantee that every victim shall be compensated. For this reason we have to start compensation practise with recovering damages to the victims who suffered loss due to serious or grave crime, says the prosecutor A.Meška. Besides, we have to take account of the financial situation of the victim. At the first phase the compensation may be paid only to the poor victims. This was the experience of all EU countries. It is important to seek for operational compensation system and in future we shall be able to expand both the range of crimes that resulted in damage subject to compensation and the group of victims entitled to such compensation.

It is non-governmental authorities that provide legal and psychological assistance to victims in the Eu countries. Pre-trial investigation officers or prosecutors simply inform such authorities about the fact that in certain process they have a victim. For example in France, when police arrives at the place of crime, the victim is immediately informed about the possibility to contact organisation that provides support to the victims. Even when the victim refuses to do so, the prosecutor submits information about the victim to such organisation.

Lithuanian public organisations that provide assistance to the victims are not able to provide due support to each applicant. According to Mr. Meška, at present the victim has to blindly believe public officers during the investigation and hearing procedure (unless he is able to hire a qualified lawyer at his own expense).

 Taking due account of the future EU membership Lithuania has to start drafting an action plan (program) that defines procedure of granting legal, psychological and financial support to the victims of crime. We have no such a plan yet. Lets hope that this will not bring a pessimistic shadow on the latest annual report of the European Commission on the progress achieved by Lithuania while preparing for the EU membership…