The Right of a Victim to a Review of a Decision not to Prosecute as Set out in Article 11 of Directive 2012/29/EU and an Assessment of its Transposition in Germany, Italy, France and Croatia

Abstract

Directive 2012/29/EU represents a decisive step at the EU level to ensure minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. One of the specific rights of a victim which is promulgated in the Directive is the right to a review of a decision not to prosecute which is laid down in Article 11. The aim of this paper is to analyse selected European models of review of a decision not to prosecute in criminal proceedings in, respectively, Germany, Italy, France and Croatia. Taking Directive 2012/29/EU as a starting point, this article aims to answer the question as to how well the selected legal systems comply with Article 11 and to indicate possible disputes with some traditional principles of criminal procedural law that may arise in the course of implementing the European provisions in national law.

Keywords

• Directive 2012/29/EU
• victim
• subsidiary prosecutor
• right to review of a decision not to prosecute