Hate crime victims involved in a criminal procedure experience difficulties that are different from problems encountered by other victims. In trying to meet the specific procedural needs of hate crime victims many EU Member States have introduced protective measures and services in criminal proceedings, but the adopted approaches are widely disparate. By reporting the results of an EU-wide comparative survey into hate crime victims within national criminal procedures the authors aim to: (1) make an inventory of the national (legal) definitions of hate crime and the protection measures available (on paper) for hate crime victims; and (2) critically discuss certain national choices, inter alia by juxtaposing the procedural measures to the procedural needs of hate crime victims to see if there are any lacunae from a victimological perspective. The authors conclude that the Member States should consider expanding their current corpus of protection measures in order to address some of the victims’ most urgent needs.

This study uses a novel approach to understand the experience and meaning of unsafety and the contribution of penal protection orders to victim empowerment in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV). In ten in-depth interviews, IPV survivors reflect on their relationship with their ex-partner and the previous years in which the order against their ex-partner was issued, including its role within the wider process of coming to terms with IPV victimisation and moving on. Depending on expectations of protection orders (POs) enforcement and deterrence, POs enhance one’s safety-related self-efficacy and result in a sense of empowerment. Its meaning can be understood in terms of one’s power from the ex-partner, power to act, status vis-à-vis the offender and the wider community, care/help of the CJS, and unity/togetherness with the wider community. Several implications for theoretical and empirical research and practice are discussed.

Various laws, guidelines and other types of regulation have been created that introduced new rights worldwide for victims of crime. Many of these rights focus on active victims who wish to step into the open and to orally express their views and experiences in court. Rights and wishes to remain in the background and to preserve one’s privacy received less attention. This article focuses primarily on the wishes of victims that reveal their intention to not play an active role in the criminal process, and on victims who fear an invasion of their safety and privacy. According to the literature, such wishes and needs can be considered to be fundamental. The article questions the empirical basis for the present victim legislation: are the new laws that have been created over the decades founded on empirically established victim needs, or on presumed victim needs? The article concludes with a plea for a more extensive use of empirical findings that shed light on victim wishes in the legislation and the criminal process.

Penal protection orders (PPOs) aim to protect initial victims from repeat victimisation and in a broader sense from any danger for his or her dignity or psychological and sexual integrity and may therefore be important instruments for victim safety. However, knowledge on the actual practice of the PPOs and the successes, dilemmas and challenges involved is scarce. In this article, we describe the legal framework and actual enforcement practice of Dutch PPOs. The theoretical framework leading our explorative analyses regards Lipsky’s notion of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and the succeeding work of Maynard & Musheno and Tummers on coping strategies and agency narratives of frontline workers. Using interview data from criminal justice professionals, victims and offenders, we describe the conditions of the enforcement practice and answer the question which coping mechanisms and types of agencies the professionals tend to apply in order to meet the legislative aims and to protect victims as effectively as possible. Results show that the five conditions described by Lipsky are clearly present. So far, in almost all situations the process of monitoring violations is reactive and because knowledge on risk indicators for violent escalation is still limited, it is difficult for frontline workers to decide how many and what type of resources should be invested in which cases. This results in a ‘moving away from clients’ strategy. However, within this context in which reactive enforcement is the default, we also found several examples of coping that represent ‘moving towards clients’ strategies.

This article presents a preliminary analysis of how victims who report to the police for protection in the Netherlands judge their experiences with the police, in comparison with victims reporting crimes for other reasons. An existing dataset was used: the data was originally collected for a comprehensive survey among crime victims of 12 years and older in 2016. Female victims of violent (sexual and non-sexual) crimes constitute the major part of the victims for whom protection is the most important reporting reason. Victim perceptions of police contribution to safety as well as police information were investigated. The analyses show that overall, victim perceptions of the police’s contribution to safety are rather negative. Contribution to safety is judged somewhat better by victims for whom protection is their most important reporting reason; however, the respondents who are positive still form a minority. Police information is judged positively by more victims than contribution to safety. Of the respondents for whom protection is a reporting reason, victims of sexual crimes appear to judge police information positively more often than victims of other crime types.

Virtually all major jurisdictions worldwide, including those in Europe, have been facing constrained budgets in civil justice and increasing litigation volume, delays, complexity and costs in the last few decades. This makes it difficult, or impossible, for certain individuals and entities to pursue meritorious claims, be it individually or collectively, posing a significant challenge to access to justice. With third-party funding (TPF) of litigation frequently touted as a promising private funding solution to this problem, this article explores the question of how and why the proliferation of TPF has been viewed with a considerable degree of caution in Europe, and questions to what extent this caution is warranted. The scale of the civil justice crisis in Europe, the shift from public to private funding and the purported benefits of TPF are first briefly investigated. The article then proceeds to critically examine, including from a law-and-economics perspective, the main sources of concern leading to the scepticism shown towards TPF in Europe, which is still largely unregulated. These sources are the commodification of justice, conflicts of interest and funder capital inadequacy. Particular reference is made to the regulatory frameworks of the jurisdictions of England and Wales, the Netherlands and Germany in Europe, and at the European Union level, to the Representative Actions Directive. It concludes by restating the potential benefits and complexity of this industry and the importance of distinguishing and analysing the arguments most commonly raised against it in the literature, policy and jurisprudence.

In determining the accessibility and affordability of the civil justice system, this article will evaluate the costs regime and litigation funding available in Cyprus in light of the recent proposed reforms to the civil procedure rules. At the time of writing, civil cases in Cyprus are ranked according to their value and governed by fixed costs rules depending on the scale of the claim. Litigation funding, such as legal aid, is available only if the civil case involves the infringement of human rights and is granted under specific circumstances. Furthermore, third-party funding and contingency fees are practically unheard of, as they remain unregulated by the Cypriot legislation. Third-party litigation funding has only recently been examined by the national courts albeit in the context of an application for the setting aside of an order enforcing a foreign judgment. Is the Cypriot civil justice system affordable and thus accessible? Does limited access to legal aid and third-party funding result in violation of the right to access to justice? Will the civil justice reform improve accessibility for litigants? A holistic answer will be achieved by drawing comparisons with costs and litigation funding practices in England and Wales, as well as in Germany, both of which are leading jurisdictions in Europe and especially influential owing to their geopolitical history with the island, representing the common law and civil law systems, respectively.

Singapore, a common law jurisdiction, recently implemented radical changes to its civil procedure regime in order to ensure affordability of the civil justice process. The reforms include the imposition of a duty on parties to consider alternative dispute resolution (ADR) before commencing and during legal proceedings and the empowerment of courts to order the parties to use ADR. This paper discusses the implications of increasing the justice system’s emphasis on the use of ADR with reference to Singapore’s civil justice reforms and comparable reforms in the United Kingdom. It demonstrates how the historical inclusion of ADR in the justice system has shaped the concept of access to justice, resulting in an emphasis not only on cost-effective justice but also on tailoring the characteristics of each case to the appropriate dispute resolution process. An excessive association of ADR with cost savings will thus neglect other significant dimensions of access to justice. The paper argues that the question of whether ADR is an appropriate process for each dispute assumes greater complexity as both the parties and the court have to engage in detailed cost-benefit analyses to determine whether any refusal to attempt ADR or order to use ADR is justified. Cost concerns also have to be delicately balanced with other factors relevant to determining the appropriate dispute resolution process. The author proposes adopting a more nuanced approach that does not deem mediation as automatically decreasing the overall cost of justice and recognises the importance of encouraging appropriate dispute resolution.

Costs are a severe barrier to access to justice in Ireland. Taxpayer support for litigation is virtually non-existent and contingency fees are not permitted. Lawyers may take cases on a speculative ‘no foal no fee’ basis but two decisions of the supreme court in recent years invalidated both direct third-party funding of another’s lawsuit (Persona Digital Telephony v. Minister for Public Enterprise [2017] IESC 27) and the assignment of a legal claim to a third-party (SPV Osus Ltd v. Minister for Public Enterprise [2018] IESC 44). This paper reviews these two decisions and challenges the supreme court’s reliance on the ancient common law principles of maintenance and champerty. This is significantly out of line with the approach of senior courts in other common law jurisdictions. The access to justice problem was acknowledged by the judges and the Irish Law Reform Commission is studying the issue. With the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, Ireland has been presented with the opportunity to become a major common law ‘hub’ for legal services. Litigation funding would assist it to embrace this opportunity. The paper also takes a brief look at third-party costs orders in Ireland, used only in cases where altruistic funders provide funding for litigation. The paper’s basic message is that, subject to appropriate regulation, third-party litigation funding should become lawful in Ireland.

Affordable and timely judicial proceedings by independent courts are essential for an effective justice system. They are also a precondition for the protection of the rule of law in the EU and for an integrated internal market. Among the tools the European Commission adopts in this field, the EU Justice Scoreboard is key to understanding the empirical basis of the European judicial policies. Created in 2013, it provides annual data on efficiency, quality and independence of member states’ courts. The Scoreboard considers costly judicial proceedings as an obstacle to access to justice. It accordingly benchmarks member states’ performance with various indicators. In the Commission’s view, different national legal traditions should not prevent comparative assessment of member state judicial systems. However, the idiosyncrasies of national systems and the heterogeneity of national judicial statistics inevitably affect this empirical monitoring exercise. A closer look at the Scoreboard data shows that adjudication costs cannot be evaluated through quantitative metrics without contextualisation. This article focuses on the Scoreboard data on judicial costs, from both the supply and the demand side of judicial services. It critically reviews the fact-finding process that supports the preparation of the Scoreboard as well as the data this document displays. In so doing, it tests whether the Scoreboard conveys reliable and comparable information. This analysis is all the more important as the Scoreboard often supports academic analyses on the performance of justice and policy proposals by regulators and lawmakers.

Litigation funding has become synonymous with class action litigation in Australia with third-party funders being a key source of financing. This article addresses the rise and regulation of litigation funding in Australia through three pathways: judicial oversight of litigation funding, government regulation of litigation funding and competition from lawyers. Initially, litigation funding was subject to minimal regulation in an effort to promote access to justice. However, concerns about the size of profits made by funders which in turn impacted Australian businesses and reduced the compensation available for group members saw the adoption of a more detailed and restrictive regulatory approach. Further regulation has been proposed and criticised for hampering funding of class actions. This article concludes with a middle or compromise position that recommends a base level of regulation and empowers the courts to act as a check on excessive fees.

This article examines proposals to reduce the cost of American discovery. It focuses on recent proposals and rules amendments to shift the entire cost of discovery to the party requesting discovery and then examines the idea of mandatorily shifting discovery costs in all cases. The article identifies a number of potential flaws with mandatory cost shifting. It then evaluates several proposals that might achieve the same end with fewer side effects, finding that two of them deserve consideration and, ideally, real-world experimentation.

For nearly forty years, from the end of the 1940s, the primary form of litigation funding in England and Wales was civil legal aid. From the start of the 1980s, however, there has been a steady withdrawal from that model. Successive governments have reduced the amount of public funds committed to civil legal aid, while also removing significant areas of law from its scope. In tandem with the winnowing away of legal aid has been the promotion of a number of forms of private litigation funding through statutory reform and common law developments. One form of funding has not, however, been subject to promotion by either the government or the judiciary: before-the-event legal expenses insurance. This article looks at the potential role that such legal expenses insurance could have as the primary form of litigation funding in the future.

The right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) provides one of the procedural guarantees of access to justice. One of the elements on which access to justice under Article 6 ECHR depends is party resources. The concern for equality of arms is that both parties should be able to effectively argue their case before a court, not being impeded by a lack of resources that undermines the tools of their pleading. Such an equality is subject to case-specific analysis. The Lawrence ruling is a ruling on the compatibility of the regime of recoverability of conditional fee agreement (CFA) additional liabilities under the Access to Justice Act 1999 with Article 6 ECHR. The majority in the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) ruled, under a proportionality test, that there was no infringement of Article 6 ECHR because the introduction of the recoverability of CFA additional liabilities was a necessary measure for England to adopt in the pursuit of access to justice under its margin of appreciation. In this article, I will argue that a more holistic view of the procedural guarantees provided for by Article 6 ECHR is called for to properly assess its infringement, considering mainly the principle of equality of arms. The aim of this article is, therefore, to investigate how the principle of equality of arms should have informed the UKSC’s decision in Lawrence.

Crime victims have gained a stronger position in all phases of the criminal procedure, including the post-sentencing phase. It is in this phase specifically that victims’ needs and interests relating to acknowledgement interplay with the offenders’ needs and interests relating to resocialisation. In the Netherlands, offenders who suffer from a mental disorder at the time of the offence limiting their criminal accountability and pose a significant safety threat, can be given a TBS order. This means that they are placed in a forensic psychiatric hospital to prevent further crimes and receive treatment aimed at resocialisation. As resocialisation requires the offender to return to society, contact with the victim might be a necessary step. This article focuses on victim-offender contact during the execution of this TBS order, and looks at risks and opportunities of victim-offender contact in this context, given the particular offender population. Offenders are divided into three groups: those with primarily psychotic disorders, those suffering from personality disorders and those with comorbidity, especially substance abuse disorders. The TBS population is atypical compared to offenders without a mental disorder. Their disorders can heighten the risks of unsuccessful or even counterproductive victim-offender contact. Yet, carefully executed victim-offender contact which includes thorough preparation, managing expectations and choosing the right type of contact can contribute to both successful resocialisation as well as victim acknowledgement.

The change of circumstances impacting the performance of the contracts has been a widely commented issue. However, there seems to be a gap in legal jurisprudence with regard to resorting to such a remedy in the investment contracts setting, especially from the procedural perspective. It has not been finally settled whether arbitral tribunals are empowered to adapt investment contracts should circumstances change and, if they were, what the grounds for such a remedy would be. In this article, the author presents the current debates regarding this issue, potential grounds for application of such a measure and several proposals which would facilitate resolution of this procedural uncertainty.

Long before the coming of the Bill of Rights in written Constitutions, the common law has had the greatest regard for the personal liberty of the individual. In order to safeguard that liberty, the remedy of habeas corpus was always available to persons deprived of their liberty unlawfully. This ancient writ has been incorporated into the modern Constitution as a fundamental right and enforceable as other rights protected by virtue of their entrenchment in those Constitutions. This article aims to bring together the various understanding of habeas corpus at common law and the principles governing the writ in common law jurisdictions. The discussion is approached through a twelve-point construct thus providing a brief conspectus of the subject matter, such that one could have a better understanding of the subject as applied in most common law jurisdictions.

This article presents an interdisciplinary comparison of British and German legal arguments concerning the justification of the use of force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It is situated in the broader framework of research on strategic culture and the use of international law as a tool for justifying state behaviour. Thus, a gap in political science research is analysed: addressing legal arguments as essentially political in their usage. The present work questions whether differing strategic cultures will lead to a different use of legal arguments. International legal theory and content analysis are combined to sort arguments into the categories of instrumentalism, formalism and natural law. To do so, a data set consisting of all speeches with regard to the fight against ISIS made in both parliaments until the end of 2018 is analysed. It is shown that Germany and the UK, despite their varying strategic cultures, rely on similar legal justifications to a surprisingly large extent.