PUBLICITY OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS AND VICTIM’S PRIVACY: AN APPROACH FROM THE STATUTE OF VICTIMS OF CRIME

Abstract

The right to freedom of information and the principle of publicity of judicial proceedings are configured as fundamental rights which, together, allow compliance with the democratic requirement of control of the functioning of the Administration of Justice. However, these guarantees do not have —despite their transcendental role in every Social and Democratic State of Law— an absolute character, but can be limited by other rights of equal fundamental rank, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to defence and the principle of contradiction or the right to privacy, both of the accused and of the victim. Given the impossibility of affirming a priori the preference of some over others, it is necessary to proceed to a balancing of the interests at stake in each specific and particular case. Precisely, the right to privacy of the crime victim is one of the fundamental rights that can counteract the exercise of freedom of information and the publicity of the process; this is specifically the purpose of these pages, taking as a reference the Statute for victims of crime