Bill giving crime victims right to $$ from offenders being discussed in Senate today

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pro­vi­sions in the Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, 2026, be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate to­day, will in­clude al­low­ing a vic­tim to ap­ply to the court for a con­vict­ed of­fend­er to pay them com­pen­sa­tion - and pro­vid­ing for vic­tims’ pro­tec­tion from in­tim­i­da­tion by an of­fend­er and their sup­port­ers dur­ing court pro­ceed­ings.

But pri­or to de­bate, at­ten­tion will be on whether a re­place­ment for em­bat­tled Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates will be re­vealed in the Sen­ate to­day.

The Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, which will be pi­lot­ed by Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj, pro­vides for the rights of vic­tims of crim­i­nal of­fences.

Its 29 claus­es cov­er the gen­er­al treat­ment of a vic­tim; treat­ment dur­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion of an of­fence, treat­ment dur­ing pros­e­cu­tion of this of­fence; vic­tims’ rights af­ter pros­e­cu­tion of an of­fence and a com­plaints sys­tem.

The bill in­cludes cre­at­ing an oblig­a­tion by all in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry, pros­e­cut­ing agen­cies and vic­tims’ ser­vices agen­cies who deal with vic­tims, to treat them with cour­tesy and com­pas­sion; re­spect their dig­ni­ty and pri­va­cy; con­sid­er their safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty and take in­to ac­count and be re­spon­sive to the vic­tim’s race, sex, ori­gin (in­clud­ing ge­o­graph­i­cal), eth­nic­i­ty, dis­abil­i­ty, re­li­gion, age and mar­i­tal sta­tus.

It pro­vides that a pros­e­cut­ing agency and the court shall, dur­ing court pro­ceed­ings and with­in a court­room, pro­vide for the pro­tec­tion of the vic­tim. This in­cludes min­imis­ing ex­po­sure to un­nec­es­sary con­tact with the of­fend­er, de­fence wit­ness­es and of­fend­er’s fam­i­ly mem­bers/sup­port­ers; and pro­tect­ing a vic­tim from their in­tim­i­da­tion.

Af­ter the pros­e­cu­tion of an of­fence, a vic­tim will be al­lowed to file a vic­tim im­pact state­ment to the court. This may be con­sid­ered in de­ter­min­ing the guilty per­son’s sen­tence.

Vic­tims’ post-pros­e­cu­tion rights al­so in­clude the abil­i­ty to make an ap­pli­ca­tion to the court for an or­der that the con­vict­ed of­fend­er pay com­pen­sa­tion to the vic­tim.

Al­so, where the Crim­i­nal In­juries Com­pen­sa­tion Act does not ap­ply to a vic­tim, they may ap­ply to the State for com­pen­sa­tion or fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance.

The bill stip­u­lates that the vic­tim’s needs - in­clud­ing their un­der­stand­ing of Eng­lish - should be tak­en in­to ac­count when en­ti­ties com­mu­ni­cate with them. It al­so al­lows nom­i­na­tion of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive where a vic­tim has died or is un­able to rep­re­sent them­selves.

Oth­er claus­es deal with how pros­e­cu­tors, in­ves­ti­ga­tors and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion in­ter­act with vic­tims, in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion about an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the vic­tim reg­u­lar­ly, pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion about pros­e­cu­tion swift­ly, or about cul­prits’ bail ap­pli­ca­tion.

The DPP will have to ob­tain vic­tims’ views be­fore de­cid­ing where he in­tends to sub­stan­tial­ly mod­i­fy charges, dis­con­tin­ue pros­e­cu­tion, ac­cept a guilty plea to a less­er charge, ap­peal a sen­tence, or ap­peal an ac­quit­tal.