VICATIS – Victim-centered Approach to Improving Support Services

VICATIS – Victim-centered Approach to Improving Support Services is a transnational project funded by the Justice Programme of the EU under the Call JUST-JACC-VICT-AG-2016, dedicated to improved implementation of the Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime (Victims’ Directive).

Several EU-level reports (e.g. by EIGE[1], FRA[2], and CECL and IALS[3]) on Directive 2012/29/EU indicate the importance of appropriate and timely information, individualised to meet each victim’s needs.  In all above, as well as in the recently completed TEVNAS project in Croatia, the right to information is identified as key not just of and in itself, but also for victims’ informed participation in the criminal proceedings and their full access to available services.

Majority of studies use legal and institutional analyses of victims’ rights and give little indication of victims’ perspective. Some of the project partners from Croatia, Romania and Slovenia had been involved with the FRA research project ‘Children and Justice’[4], which showed that professional and victim perspectives on the aspects of criminal procedure may be at a variance, and that the lack of information, from the child victims’ perspective, represents the single most problematic aspect of the experience. These insights informed the project’s focus on the victim-centered approach, on assessment of the impact of EU regulation from this perspective, and on the provision of information to victims as a key component of victims support.

The project aims to reach the following general objectives:

1. To improve understanding of the impact of current regulation, procedures, and institutional framework on the victims of crime through victim-centered research. This knowledge will be used for advocacy and tool development.

[1] http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/mh0115698enn_0.pdf

[2] http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/victims-crime-eu-extent-and-nature-support-victims

[3] http://www.victimsprotection.eu/images/4.38-Comparative-Report.pdf

[4] http://fra.europa.eu/en/project/2012/children-and-justice

Partners:

The project is coordinated by the Croatian Law Centre, and implemented in partnership between the following organizations and institutions: Croatian Law Centre, Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Croatia, and Office for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities of the Republic of Croatia (HR); Patent Asssociation (HU); Centre for Legal Research (RO); Association for Nonviolent Communication, and Peace Institute (SI).

Funders:

European comission