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The disputation will be held in Norwegian.
Trial lecture - time and place
Adjudication committee
- Professor Ragnhild Sollund, University of Oslo (leader)
- Professor emeritus Henrik Tham, Stockholms University (1. opponent)
- Associate professor Görel Granström, Umeå university (2. opponent)
Chair of defence
- Professor Peter Scharff Smith
Supervisors
- Professor Vidar Halvorsen
- Associate professor Nina Jon
- Professor Ragnhild Hennum
- Professor May-Len Skilbrei
Summary
Victims of crime and the rule of law - reality or rhetoric?
The dissertation is an analysis of documents with relevance for victims of crime from governments and Stortinget (The Parliament) since 1990. All budget proposals from The Ministry of Justice and Stortinget’s decisions have been analyzed, as well as all relevant white papers (stortingsmeldinger) and legislative proposals. The purpose is to show how the legal security of crime victims is discussed and emphasized in public documents over more than 30 years.
Three decades of individual characteristics
In the 1990s, crime victims came to the fore and their rights and needs were recognized in new ways. The 2000s are referred to in the thesis as the "decade of reforms", due to several important measures to safeguard and strengthen the legal security of crime victims, including extended rights to legal aid and a better compensation scheme for victims of violence. But at the beginning of the 2010s, it seems as if the political will to improve the position of crime victims had stopped, although never had there been so much attention to the rights and needs of crime victims through research and studies. That is why it is referred to as "the decade of paradoxes".
At the end of the decade, attention turned to limiting victims' rights. Two of the most important and expensive support schemes for victims of crime are the right to legal aid and to compensation for victims of violence. The rights under these schemes were curtailed with broad political majorities in 2021 and 2022, justified by efficiency considerations and wishes for cost reduction. No politician questioned whether the restrictions exceeded the legal security of crime victims.
Failure to fulfill political promises
In the Solberg government’s (H and Frp) political platform, the "Sundvolden Declaration" from 2013, it was stated that the consideration of crime victims "should be emphasized throughout the criminal justice chain". But in May 2021, after eight years in government, then Minister of Justice Monica Mæland (H) said in an interview with the newspaper VG that "the victims of crime have too often been forgotten when discussing crime". It wasn't just the government that "forgot" the victims of crime. During the period, the political opposition never had any proposals of their own to strengthen the victims' legal security. But when spending cuts were sought in The Ministry of Justice's budget, the victims were not "forgotten".
Victims of crime and human rights
In many countries, including Sweden, the authorities have taken the clear position that it is a human rights obligation to look after crime victims. It is pointed out in the thesis that in Norway we have never had a principled discussion about why the public sector should support and help crime victims. To the extent that the victims have been taken care of, it seems to be a consequence of traditional welfare thinking: We pity the victims. And in a situation with tighter public budgets, it has proved easy with broad political majorities to curtail victims' rights, despite political program formulations that say they want to do the opposite. The promises have turned out to be empty rhetoric, and not realities.