Justice for Victims of Crime

This book analyses the rights of crime victims within a human rights paradigm, and describes the inconsistencies resulting from attempts to introduce the procedural rights of victims within a criminal justice system that views crime as a matter between the state and the offender, and not as one involving the victim. To remedy this problem, the book calls for abandoning the concept of crime as an infringement of a state's criminal laws and instead reinterpreting it as a violation of human rights. The state's right to punish the offender would then be replaced by the rights of victims to see those responsible for violating their human rights convicted and punished and by the rights of offenders to be treated as accountable agents.

Explains the paradigm shift from a state-centred to a human-rights-based criminal justice system Offers a comprehensive overview of the rights of crime victims under European law Provides readers access to relevant case-law of the European Court of Human Rights

Inhalt

1. Criminal Justice in Need of a Paradigm Shift.- 2. Punishment and Human Sociality.- 3. Human Dignity The Right to be a Person.- 4. Criminal Justice Respecting Human Dignity.- 5. Differences Between Traditional Criminal Justice and a Human Dignity Based Approach.