[the victims] need someone to listen to them and give them the importance they have, neither more nor less.
Public Prosecutor
It is more than obvious that all the victims have the right to be heard. This right enables the victims to give their statements about the cases that may be pertinent to the investigation and where presenting evidence is concerned. Giving their statements is still experienced as a sort of compulsory routine where a note is taken
‘of what is said but not of what she is saying’. Similar to the right to understand and be understood, the right to be heard assumes that specialised practitioners in the justice system are involved and have experience in the field of dealing with instances of intimate partner violence, in particular when creating empathy and in knowing about the dynamics of domestic violence and in enabling steams of accessible, understandable communication to flow between themselves and the victims.
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The right to be heard means defining and laying down:
⊲ Basic patterns that are followed when:
☐ Interviewing the victims. In our research, we were able to identify victims who related the way they felt about the manner in which the questions were asked them: they felt as if they had been accused, blamed or their words doubted. The way in which the interviews are conducted and the question asked are determining factors in gathering evidence and in believing what the victims might have in connection with the justice system. Communication is an essential part of the right of victims to a hearing. It is the victims’ right to be treated respectfully but it also benefits the whole justice system. Therefore justice system practitioners should work towards an individualistic approach to the victims, thus enhancing their chances of obtaining positive results. For more about this, see Annex 1 – Techniques to active hearing. Look at the example below illustrating the way the questions asked by a practitioner are understood by the victim, as well as one of the ways it is possible to speak to the victim. the children have a family doctor? What’s the family doctor name? Do you have a family doctor?”
“I was asked several times;
I understood but I didn’t want [to answer]. They asked whether I drank, who my children’s doctors were, who my own doctors were. I couldn’t stand those kinds of questions any longer. Although we can be understanding about things, because they’re like that, it was the end. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“I’d like to get to know you a bit better. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about your health or about the children’s health?”
☐ Gathering evidence: It is essential to adopt a professional stance that regards collecting evidence about the perpetrator’s criminal behaviour in cases of domestic violence in the same way as evidence is collected in other kinds of crimes. But the results of our study showed very clearly that collecting evidence falls basically and almost exclusively on the shoulders of the victims; the justice system practitioners hope that the victims are proactive in collecting the evidence because it falls to the victims themselves to prove that what they made a complaint about, really happened. However, in domestic violence settings, psychological violence emerges the most often.
Collecting evidence that she has been the victim of psychological violence without resorting to the expertise of the doctors to testify that it has indeed been so, turns out to be a nightmare for these women. Therefore, in resorting to psychological counselling, in particular the counselling offered by the
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victim support services, reveals itself to be beneficial to the case going through the justice system. The gains that may be reaped in getting through the criminal proceedings by referring to victim support service records are plentiful, Needless to say, this fact is stressed by the CEDAW Committee (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) which recommends that the States improve the criminal justice system’s response to domestic violence, for example, by paying more attention to doctors’ or social workers’ reports because: “they can show how violence, even when committed without the presence of [other] witnesses, has material effects on the victims’ physical, psychological and social well-being” (CEDAW, 2015: 19).
This perception is reiterated by the views held by the victim support services themselves when they give the Public Prosecutor’s Office their reports during the investigation stage: in these reports “we say that in our view, the situation deserves to be handled better and greater attention needs to be paid to
‘n’ factors, and that in all likelihood, so the woman told us, she wasn’t even given the chance to explain things by filling in the risk-evaluation form, yes, that evaluation form. And therefore, owing to the numerous factors that we listed, the situation has to be looked at in a different way.” (Lawyer)
☐ Never-ending questioning: asking the same questions over and over during the different stages of the criminal proceedings should be avoided. Never-ending questioning about the same facts causes the victims to feel as if they are not believed by the justice system and/ or they are blamed /made to feel responsible for what happened to them. In the persistent search for the truth underpinning the facts, there is a need to be more creative in the way the questions are formulated. On the other hand, certain possibilities present themselves when collecting the evidence – such as the statements given for future reference – that may help to avoid the sensation of being re-victimised.
They are, however, little used in cases involving domestic violence against adult victims.
☐ Giving testimony in the courtroom: giving their statements in court without the offender being present is a possibility that most victims are unaware of. It is important therefore to advise the victims that they have this facility available to them and at the same time, call the judges’ attention to the importance of giving court testimony without the offender being present, as the experience of both the victims and the practitioners have testified.
Hearing the victims is also recognising that there are numerous reasons why the victims keep their silence during the investigation. Indeed, various conditioning factors influence the victims’ behaviour. In our study, and opposite to what is frequently heard about the victims ‘keeping quiet afterwards because they still love them’, we concluded that there are a series of reasons explaining why the victims do not wish to testify against their abusers during the course of the investigation. Some victims refuse to testify because, although they want to tell the truth, they fail to act of their own free will because their will has been conditioned. A legal provision (Article 7) has been written into Law 112/2009, which demands that the principle based on the victim’s free will, has to be respected, namely stipulating that “measures taken with respect to the victim have to fully respect her free will”. Other victims end up by not
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making any statement and remain silent for reasons of a different nature (economic, housing, etc.); furthermore, victims keep quiet after they have made agreements with their abusers’ lawyers. This is why the next right is particularly important.