Right to Counsel for Injured Party - A Comparative Study of Sexual Assault Victims' Rights in Sweden, Arizona & Massachusetts

Sammanfattning: Since the late 1980s when the Counsel for Injured Party Act (1988:609) was introduced, Swedish victims of sexual assault have had the right to a special legal counsel in the form of a government funded counsel for injured party. The underlying idea behind the Act was that sexually assaulted women are in need of extra support and assistance through the legal proceedings, especially during the preliminary investigation and the following trial. Several studies have shown that many sexual assaults are never reported to the legal authorities, and if they are reported many crimes are not prosecuted since the victims do not have the strength to carry on with the legal proceedings. This is a problem that both the Swedish judicial system and the judicial systems in the United States struggle with and are trying to solve. Sexual assault, particularly the crime rape, is recognized as a sever offence to the victim’s integrity that may result in horrifying physical and psychological consequences for the victimized person. Through history, sexual assault has been seen as a natural outcome and by-product of warfare. The view of sexual assault has, however, changed. Recent history has showed that sexual assault is being utilized as an effective and inhuman weapon to battle enemies. Today, the international community recognizes the crime rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law. This thesis is a comparative study of the judicial systems and legal proceedings in Sweden and in the United States. It is also a comparative study of the rights provided to victims of sexual assault in these two countries. The aim of the thesis is to examine if, and if so to what extent victims of sexual assault are provided with legal counsels in the legal proceedings in Sweden and in the United States. In order to examine this, the thesis studies and analyses what rights sexually assaulted victims have in the Swedish legal system, the intent behind the Counsel for Injured Party Act and what the Act means for victims of sexual assault. Furthermore, the thesis examines what rights the federal judicial system in the United States provides to victims of sexual assault as well as what rights are provided to them at a state level, exemplified by the state of Arizona and the state of Massachusetts. Although the work with this thesis has shown that crime victims’ rights in Sweden and in the United States have developed over the years, there are still things that need to be done and that need to be improved. The Swedish Counsel for Injured Party Act needs to be more effective and more far-reaching to fully support all victims of sexual assault in the legal proceedings. In the United States, neither the federal government nor the state governments provide sexual assault victims with the legal counsels that they so desperately need in relation to the legal proceedings. In a modern society this cannot be acceptable and something needs to change.