Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill

Overview

The Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill sets out to make provision for:

• the establishment of a statutory Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses of Crime;
• the mandatory publication of victim-related statistics;
• improved regulation of access to complainants’ private information in serious sexual offence cases;
• pre-trial legal representation in serious sexual offence cases;
• a technical fix to address an issue which will arise when Committal Reform in Northern Ireland is implemented; and
• the extension of Special Measures for witnesses and protection from direct cross examination by individuals charged with hate crime-aggravated offences.

Why your views matter

As part of the Assembly’s normal legislative processes, the Victims and Witnesses of Crime Bill has been referred to the Committee for Justice for scrutiny.

The Committee is seeking your views on the objectives, proposals and potential consequences of the Bill. Your views will help to inform the Committee’s consideration of the Bill.

Please note, you can choose which parts of the survey you wish to respond to. You do not have to complete the whole survey and can choose which sections or individual pages to complete.

Links to the Bill along with the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum can be found below. 

A further link has also been provided to all papers relevant to the Bill received by the Committee to date.