Diritto penale, vittimizzazione e “protagonismo” della vittima

Abstract

The notion of a « victim » of crime is unknown in both the Italian Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, with the exception of the transposed provisions of the Community acts into our national legislation and those regarding the creation of “solidarity funds” (for example, the funds to assist the victims of terrorism, of mafia, or road accidents). However, a definition is present in Article 2 of the EU Directive 2012/29/UE of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25th October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime, and replacing the Council Framework Decision 2001/220/JHA. In place of the term “victim”, our legal system uses the traditional figure of a “person damaged as the result of crime” (Article 185 of the Penal law), who joins the proceedings as a private party to claim damages (Article 74 of the Criminal Procedure Law), the figure of the “injured party” and the associations representing the interests offended by the crime (Article 91 of the Criminal Procedure Law). The irruption of the victim into the criminal trial beyond the confines of our legal traditions produces an explosive effect. Indeed, these confines are already very large with regard to the experience of some foreign countries where often extra procedural methods of victim-offender mediation are provided.