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A woman who was raped during her childhood by her father has brought a High Court challenge over her exclusion from a State compensation scheme for the victims of crime.
The court heard the woman’s application was denied due to a term in a previous iteration of the Criminal Compensation Scheme that prevented victims who lived in the same household as the offender from seeking compensation.
She is challenging this section, which was removed from the scheme when it was revised in 2021.
The woman was abused by her father on dates between 1995 and 2002 when she was aged between 11 and 18 years of age.
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Her father pleaded guilty to 32 offences at the Central Criminal Court, including rape and sexual assault. He was jailed for eight years in 2018.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, sought compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, which administers the scheme.
The obsolete section stated that “no compensation will be payable where the offender and the victim were living together as members of the same household at the time the injuries were inflicted”.
As the woman’s compensation claim was made during the older scheme’s reign, the compensation tribunal found “no compensation was payable to her”.
She appealed that decision, which was upheld by the tribunal’s appeal panel earlier this year.
This appeal decision breaches her rights, she alleges in her High Court case. There is “no basis” for her exclusion simply because her abuser was a member of the same household as her.
She also claims the State has failed to transpose into domestic legislation an EU law concerning the entitlements of victims of violent, intentional crimes to compensation.
The woman’s senior counsel, David Conlan Smyth, appearing with Jack Nicholas, instructed by solicitor Colin Clarke, said the action raises “a novel point of law”. Mr Conlan Smyth said there was an irony to the claim, as she would be eligible for compensation if the abuse inflicted on the woman had occurred in a house down the road.
In her action against the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal, the Minister for Justice, Ireland and the Attorney General, the woman seeks various orders, including one quashing the determination that she is not entitled to be compensated under the scheme.
She is also asking the High Court to declare that the scheme is unconstitutional, contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and incompatible with EU directives relating to compensation for victims of crime.
The court should also declare that the ‘household’ stipulation of the previous scheme breaches her rights to dignity, privacy, equality and non-discrimination guaranteed under EU law, she says.
The matter should be remitted back to the tribunal for fresh consideration, she also submits.
The judicial review action came before Ms Justice Niamh Hyland, who on an ex parte basis granted the applicant permission to bring her challenge.
The matter will return before the courts in December.