Hong Kong Victims Rights Analysis

Victims’ rights, the victims could participate actively in the trials, include the participation, representation, protection and repatriation of the victims. In Hong Kong, the victims’ rights has written in the Victims Charter. Some victims’ rights has achieved, but some of the victims’ rights in some cases may not be achieved. Also, it is difficult to get the balance between the rights of victims and offenders. The relationship between victims’ rights and offender rights are very complicated, so in this essay I will analysis the victims’ rights in Hong Kong and I will talk about the relationship between the victims’ rights and offender rights and explain why it is difficult to balance the rights of victims with the rights of offenders.
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For example, if the victims want to use the live television link and behind a screen trial, they have to satisfy the “witness in fear”. There are some principles to define whether the victims are “witness in fear”, but the definition is too broad and it is very hard to define whether the victims are in fear or not. Because it is really subjective to satisfy the victim is in fear, so maybe some victims that are really need these protection but cannot use it because of the decision of the court. Therefore, some victims cannot enjoy their victims’ rights. Moreover, the Victims Charter said that “The victim's right to information-reporting the crime”. In fact, there are some cases that the police are rejecting and ignoring the reporting from the victims, especially in the sexual offence cases. In some cases, the police will also reject the victims’ request of the protection. It does not fulfil the Victims Charter in Hong Kong. Also, in the Victims Charter, some of the rules are hard to guarantee and benefit to the victims. For instance, the victim's right to prompt return of property, support and after-care and seek compensation. If the victims cannot own these rights, they can report to the department. However, the reporting department is not independence, it is managed by the HKPF. Thus, the complaint is useless and un-meaningful. Therefore, the complaint is hard to affect the result of the victims’ rights and cannot protect the victims to have their victims’ rights.
To sum up, the victims’ rights protection is a lesser extent in the Hong Kong Criminal Justice system. There are some victims’ rights can be found in Hong Kong, but the victims’ rights in Hong Kong still exist some problems that are hard to solve. Also they really need to rethink the problems and make sure the victims can enjoy the victims’