Important decision
At the end of March, the Constitutional Court dealt with the well-known media case of the rape of a girl by her stepfather, which caused strong outrage in society. The full court concluded that the victim’s rights had been violated – in particular, by the way in which the courts of previous instances had assessed the gravity of the crime and thus caused the secondary victimisation of the girl. Nevertheless, it did not overturn the contested judgment, which imposed only a suspended sentence on the man.
The Court emphasized that the Constitutional Court does not have the power to review the amount of the sentence if constitutionally guaranteed rights have not been violated – and even if the sentence was found to be inadequate and inappropriate from a moral perspective, it did not exceed the legal limit, according to the Constitutional Court. However, the decision of the full bench of the Constitutional Court was not unanimous (by a ratio of 10:5, the judges refused to overturn the sentence), with five judges arguing for cassation intervention in favour of a harsher punishment.
The Constitutional Court reiterated that the courts must take into account not only the facts but also the dignity and protection of the victims when assessing crimes. They should give extremely careful reasons for theiraction when imposing probation, so as not to negate the preventive function of punishment. The Constitutional Court found both the sentence and the reasoning of the contested judgment unacceptable, particularly in view of the fact that the victim of the offence was a child. It was also made clear that a symbolic form of justice was not sufficient in such serious cases.
For the victim, who appeared in the media under the pseudonym ‘Anička’, the finding was nevertheless significant. It opened the way for her to seek compensation from the state for maladministration.
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