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Establishing minimum norms regarding the rights, support and protection of victims of crime was among the topics discussed at the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council configuration (JHA), in which the Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu took part on Monday, informs a press release from the Ministry of Justice sent to AGERPRES.
"An important point addressed during the JHA Council meeting was the debate on the proposal to amend Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards regarding the rights, support and protection of victims of crime and to replace Framework Decision 2001/220/ of the JHA Council. An update of the framework is necessary to ensure increased protection for the victims of crimes at the EU level and, implicitly, for the victims in Romania," the press release reads.
The quoted source shows that one of the objectives is to facilitate the victims' access to reparations/compensations.
"The proposal provides for a set of measures for victims and for victims that are minors. Some examples of measures are: establishing a phone line for victims, providing free psychological support and as much as is necessary for vulnerable victims, establishing the right to be accompanied by a person other than a lawyer in the stage preceding the trial, creating specific and integrated support services for minors within the same headquarters (Barnahus model)," the Ministry of Justice mentions.
In this sense, the Ministry of Justice states that the first subject was about the article of Directive for the state to grant compensation/reparations to victims.
"This establishes the obligation of the competent authorities to pay the damages/compensations owed to the victim by the perpetrator of the crime in advance, so that they will subsequently be subrogated to the victim in relation to the perpetrator of the crime," the Ministry explains.
Alina Gorghiu specified that the victims must receive compensations, but in this process, the specifics of each member state must be taken into account.
The Romanian official mentioned that "in Romania, we have a new procedure by which victims of crimes promptly benefit from a voucher to cover their immediate expenses for food, accommodation, personal use, medicine and transport, sanitary materials, up to an amount equivalent to 5 gross minimum basic salaries. The amount will be borne from the budget of the Ministry of Justice and will later be recovered from the aggressor".
According to the MJ, the second amendment, debated during the work of the Council, concerns the situation of underage victims. Thus, the proposed directive provides for the integration in a single space of psychological and medical evaluation services, hearing and protection of underage victims (Barnahus model)
The Minister of Justice stated that the Barnahus model should not be an obligation in EU judicial systems. States must be able to organize their justice system as they see fit to protect children from crimes.
"It is a good thing that we are discussing all the means to make them feel safe everywhere in the EU. We need to act as soon as possible and it is good that there is this concern at the EU level. In Romania, there are, at the level of the courts, rooms where we question children. We have such spaces in many counties, such as Arad, Dambovita, Timis, Gorj, Mures and Bihor, etc., and many more are in the process of being set up," Alina Gorghiu pointed out.
The general debates on the proposal to amend Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards regarding the rights, support and protection of crime victims and to replace Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA will form the basis of the following negotiations at the level of the Council, the Ministry mentions.
