Book review: Victim participation rights: Variation across criminal justice systems
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758019862684 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Kerstin Braun
Victim participation rights: Variation across criminal justice systems
Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, 2019; xvi þ296pp.: ISBN 9783030045456 (hbk).
Reviewed by: Jo-Anne Wemmers, Universite
´de Montre
´al, Canada
DOI: 10.1177/0269758019862684
Victimology has not had an exhaustive and systematic comparison of victims’ rights across
jurisdictions since Marion Brienen and Ernestine Hoegen’s (2000) seminal work, which compared
victims’ rights in 22 jurisdictions. Yet, over the last 20 years, multiple legal changes have been
introduced both nationally and internationally, in order to improve the plight of victims in criminal
justice. Kerstin Braun’s book fills this gap and offers a much-needed overview of victim partic-
ipation rights across national criminal justice systems.
Braun’s book is highly informative as she contrasts and compares inquisitorial, accusatorial and
mixed systems. The reader is left with a comprehensive understanding of victim participation in
several countries. Focusing in particular on the case of Australia and Germany, Braun explores the
limits of victim participation in criminal justice in adversarial and inquisitorial systems. Braun
argues that victims are marginalized and intentionally excluded from criminal proceedings until
after a conviction, and this reflects the traditional understanding of criminal justice as a conflict
between state and the accused (p. 221). Across jurisdictions, victims’ participatory rights in the
pre-trial phase are fragmented and there is no agreement regarding structured participation of
victims at this early but important phase of the criminal justice process. Regarding the trial phase,
Braun finds that while victims remain on the outside of adversarial trials, even victims in inqui-
sitorial and mixed systems have not been afforded a general participation role during criminal
proceedings. For example, in Germany, while victims’ participatory rights have been expanded in
recent years, the legislature stopped short of creating a general right for victims to participate in
German criminal procedure (p. 208). Exceptionally, participatory rights are afforded to victims
who claim financial losses in certain non-adversarial systems, such as France and Denmark (i.e.
partie civile); however, this is not a generalized right to participate that is automatically granted to
all victims. One of the only participatory rights that can be found systematically across jurisdic-
tions is the victim impact statement, which is only applicable after a conviction.
Criminal justice theory is shaped by traditional models that focus on the state and the defence
and do not include victims, as others have already noted elsewhere (Wemmers, 2017). Braun
recognizes the absence of victims in criminal legal theory and how it is consistently used to justify
victims’ exclusion from criminal justice procedures. As a result, victims are considered intruders
who don’t belong and, therefore, r emain on the periphery of criminal ju stice systems. While
victims may be foreign to dominant legal theory, there is growing recognition that victims have
International Review of Victimology
2019, Vol. 25(3) 375–378
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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