Abstract
In R v Christopher Killick [2011] EWCA Crim 1608, the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales gave a decision setting out the rights of a crime victim to seek review of a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision not to prosecute and concluded that victims have the right to seek review in such circumstances. This included a recommendation that the right to review should be made the subject of clearer procedures and guidance. This paper discusses article 10 of the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, (2011) 2011/0129 (COD) 18 May 2011 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime (see article 11 Final Directive) as applied in the Killick case. The paper further discusses the implementation of Killick in prosecution policy, namely in the CPS guideline on the victims’ right to review (Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales 2014). The right to review will be canvassed in light the existing framework of victim rights available during the pre-trial phase and, in particular, the right to private prosecution, access to counsel, and adjunctive and extra-curial rights from declarations or charters of victim rights.
Highlights
The integration of the victim into adversarial systems of justice has tended to occur at the periphery of criminal law and procedure
The movement towards a more formalised policy of the right to review is consistent with promulgation of victim rights and interests through human rights instruments and frameworks
While R v Killick demonstrates that such rights may not become meaningful for the victim until they are given local context by consideration by the courts, the case does show how international norms for the treatment of victims may come to modify criminal law and procedure identified as excluding the victim under an adversarial model
Summary
The integration of the victim into adversarial systems of justice has tended to occur at the periphery of criminal law and procedure. The 1985 United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power provided impetus for the staging of crime victims which influenced the emergence of declarations or charters of victim rights on a local level (see Sumner 1987). While these tended to be declaratory and not enforceable, such charters did lead to the reconsideration of the plight of victims and placed them in a firmer public policy context. Complementary processes of private prosecution are considered as supporting developments to increase the victim’s right to pre‐trial review processes
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