The Rights of victims
ENAbout the number of victims in Lithuania it is partially possible to judge from the official criminal statistics about the registered crimes that is provided by the Information and Relations Department under the Ministry of the Interior. It should also be mentioned that this possibility has appeared only from 1 May 2003, when the new statistical case-record “Case record of victim-natural or legal person (civil claimant)” has been introduced. Thus, yet it is impossible to show the number of victims recorded during 2003, how the number of them changed, the type of damage caused and etc. It should also be kept in mind that the statistics includes only the part of victims who have been acknowledged as victims during the criminal procedure, i. e. in case of actual and legal basis. Another source of information is the victimological researches. There have been a few national representative victimological researches carried in Lithuania of late years. The first researches were carried in 1997 and 2000. Another victimological research was carried on 23–31 October 2003 within the framework of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) “Support for the Implementation of the National Action Plan for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Republic of Lithuania”. Apart from the aspects of victimization of inhabitants this research also dealt with the opinion of the inhabitants on the human rights’ situation in Lithuania. In 2004 the Human Rights’ Monitoring Institute carried a research on the implementation of the rights of the victims containing the results on the opinion of the head of Lithuanian pre-trial investigation (police) institutions and the persons subordinate to them about the implementation of the rights of victims at the law enforcement authorities. It is important to note that the aforementioned researches and official statistical data mostly reflect the crimes committed against the victims.During the analysis of the valid legal acts it is possible to judge how the victims must be treated. Procedural aspects remain in the “shade”. However, there are no more comprehensive and secure data on how the rights of the victims are being implemented in the real life, what violations are committed and etc. The number of victims is directly related to the general criminogenic situation in the country. The situation has not improved during the last five years. The constant fluctuation of the level of criminality has taken place. More and more crimes are recorded every year (in 2002 – 72 646, in 2003 – 85 130, in 2004 – 93 419). The significant increase of the level of criminality took place in 2003 (compared to 2002 it increased by 17.2 %, i. e. from 2094 up to 2465 of crimes per 100 000 inhabitants). In 2004 the tempos of change in the number of crimes slightly slowed (from 17.2 % in 2003 until 9.7 % in 2004). However, the criminality level remained high (in 2004 there were 2719 of crimes per 100 000 inhabitants). The attention should be paid to the fact that the latter fluctuations of this criminality level took place in the same year when the new criminal laws came into force in Lithuania as well as the recording, accounting and investigation procedure of crimes was changing during the same year. The assumption could be made that the latter factors could have influence over the increase of the number of recorded crimes. However, the latter issues need separate and more intense investigations.Following the data provided by the Information and Relations Department under the Ministry of the Interior during 2004 there were 61 467 persons victims of crimes recorded (the number of victims per 100 000 of inhabitants – 1789). Natural persons formed 87.8 % (53988) of them and legal persons – 13.8 % (7451). More than half of the victims (40 962) experienced the property damage; 6978 – physical violence; 300 – sexual abuse and 558 – psychological constraint. However, the data of the new (of the year 2003) victimological research show that during the year approximately 12 % of inhabitants of Lithuania have become the victims and in a course of last five years – 26 %. Thus, the number of victims is significantly bigger than it appears in the official statistics [p. 282-283].
