1) Without prejudice to the rights of the defence and in accordance with rules of judicial discretion, Member States shall ensure that during criminal investigations:

a) interviews of victims are conducted without unjustified delay after the complaint with regard to a criminal offence has been made to the competent authority;

b) the number of interviews of victims is kept to a minimum and interviews are carried out only where strictly necessary for the purposes of the criminal investigation.

c) Member States shall ensure that interviews with victims may be audiovisually recorded and such recorded interviews may be used as evidence in criminal proceedings, in line with procedural rules established by national law.

d) victims may be accompanied by their legal representative and person of their choice, unless a reasoned decision has been made to the contrary;

e) medical examinations are kept to a minimum and are carried out only where strictly necessary for the purposes of the criminal proceedings.

2) Member States shall ensure through tools and procedures that the denial of measures established in paragraph 1 are kept to a minimum.

The European Commission did not make changes to this article in its proposal for a revised VRD.

Whilst protection measures are largely defined in law, in practice, victims are too frequently denied initiatives aimed at reducing secondary victimisation; minimising the number of interviews and medical examinations, or adjusting timings for interviews. As a result, victims are further harmed by proceedings, which prolongs their recovery and reduces their ability to participate in proceedings.

The VRD draft uses language that offers authorities leeway for noncompliance with protection measures. While this acknowledges operational feasibility and potential challenges, the result is that authorities often do not adjust their protocols to ensure that, in most cases, protection measures may be complied with.

To resolve this, VSE’s proposal sets out an obligation for procedures to minimise the frequency with which protection measures are not complied.

VSE also proposes extending measures in one critical area: the audio-visual recording of evidence as an essential means to eliminating repeated interviews. This option should be available to all victims, even if in may not be granted in all cases. States may therefore have to establish processes by which audio-visual recordings are approved for every case; ideally, needs assessment tools can be used to support this decision.

VSE deletes the reference to the right to accompaniment by a person of their choice, since this right is included in article 17 of the VSE Victims of Crime Model Provisions Paper.