El rol del sistema de protección a víctimas y testigos en el proceso penal.

Abstract

After centuries of neglect towards victims of crimes, in the 1940´s legal experts started studying victim’s participation in the criminal act, eventually developing the field of victimology. In this context, Ecuador went through ample criminal law reforms, introducing for the first-time victims’ rights into its legislation, and creating the Witness and Victims Protection and Assistance Program. Over a decade after being created, the program faces obstacles such as the lack of knowledge from judicial officials about how it works, a disconnection between them and Program officials, and that the program is viewed as means of socioeconomic assistance, and not for protection. The objective of this paper is to establish the doctrine behind victims’ rights and protection systems, to identify the issues victims of crimes and misdemeanors face, and to examine how the protections in place work in practice. The methodology will be mixed, one part will be strictly theoretical research and the other part of this research will instead be empirical research. It is concluded that these issues could be addressed by better training Judicial Officials on the matter, and distributing a detailed document for lawyers and practitioners. Additionally, the Program would benefit from incentivizing NGOs to undertake the assistance side of the program, and separating the protection of witnesses from the assistance of victims.