Can criminal justice system‘s officials freely violate crime victims‘ rights, despite the alleged recent ‘victims‘ revolution‘? The constitutional value of provisions protecting officials from criminal or civil ramifications of their failures, limiting civil and criminal accountability and impact, is analyzed in this article. It exists, for example, under US federal law and in Israel, and has been considered a meaningful deviation from the traditional binary structure of the criminal process. However, the article will question the veracity of this ‘revolution‘, and will show that even enforceability of these rights, often presented as radical, has only a limited value in these circumstances. It will be argued that even if the purpose of protecting the prosecution in its work is commendable, the absolute exemption provided in the law is disproportionate and preserves the traditional order, excluding populations from the proceedings.
Time: WEDNESDAY JUNE 27 2018 10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Speaker(s): Dana Pugach, Michal Tamir
Panel: Panel 162