Kränkning och upprättelse : En rättssociologisk studie av kränkningsersättning till brottsoffer
Violation and Satisfaction : A Sociology of Law Study of Non-Pecuniary Damages to Victims of Crime
Author
Summary, in English
The study includes two surveys, one involving the public and the other involving crime victims that had received compensation for criminal injuries from the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority. The surveys consist of vignette questions selected from legal usage and questions about the victims’ experience of the compensation. The legal rule, about a victim’s right to compensation for the violation, opens up for different interpretations and several possible applications because of its vagueness. It is reminiscent of what H.L.A. Hart describes as “the open texture of law”. If the interpretation and the application of the rule is too standardised, or made from the “external” point of view according to Hart, it can be difficult for the crime victims to get satisfaction by way of the compensation. But if there is no internal point here, or put in another way, if there are merely different personal opinions on and expressions of how the rule is to be applied, it is hard to say that the compensation really can function according to the law. The research topic is therefore linked to the problem of incommensurability and a version of what it means to follow a vague rule in an individual way. Therefore it was interesting that the respondents in general had no difficulty valuing this type of non-pecuniary damage. The main point is that the application of a rule goes beyond the rule and the meaning of the rule is to be understood in reflection of a broader practice. The dissatisfaction among victims can therefore be understood as a consequence of a too narrow understanding of what it means to follow a rule.
The subject and the analysis of the results from the empirical study, show how several dichotomies between formal and informal norms and between the internal and external view of law is put in question and under stress. But this is not meant as a critique, to show a “gap problem” or between “law in books” vis á vis “law in action”, but rather to illustrate that what can be described as leaking law is a central dimension of a normative system that deals with values, languages and the application of general rules through interpretation in a certain context. So the question is rather how its leaks rather than if, moreover, according to the legislator, the estimation of the compensation shall leak.
Department/s
Publishing year
2012
Language
Swedish
Publication/Series
Lund Studies in Sociology of Law
Volume
39
Full text
Document type
Dissertation
Publisher
Lund University
Topic
- Law and Society
Keywords
- Non-pecuniary damage
- compensation to victims of crime
- sociology of law
- tort
- violation
- victimology
- incommensurability
- H.L.A. Hart
- open texture of law
- analytical jurisprudence
- L Wittgenstein
- compensation
- norms
- criminology
- vignette method.
- sociala normer
- brottsoffer
- filosofi
- lagens upprätthållande
- pengar
- rättsväsende
- skadestånd
- upprättelse
- kränkning
Status
Published
Project
- Kränkning och upprättelse. En rättssociologisk studie av kränkningsersättning till brottsoffer
Research group
- Lund University Centre for Business Law (Swedish abbr: ACLU)
Supervisor
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1403-7246
- ISBN: 91-7267-342-7
Defence date
25 May 2012
Defence time
10:15
Defence place
Pufendorfsalen, Juridicum, Lilla Gråbrödersgatan 3C, Lund
Opponent
- Juha Karhu (professor)