4 may 2016

The European legal framework on gender-based violence is extensive and has different means of application: three levels of legal system regulate nowadays the fight against violence. In a more international field, there is the European community framework (Council of Europe by reference of the Treaties) and the internal framework, which is national for each country. In our case there is also the autonomous framework, so we have two national levels.

Nowadays, the legal system is no longer exclusive of what the government bodies of a place apply on it, but there are laws in a higher field that have also to be enforced.

Which aspects of the European law deal with the fight against gender-based violence? Within the Treaty of the European Union, the articles 2 and 3 locate equality between women and men as cross-cutting element for all the community policies. The Charter of Fundamental Rights has different articles about it: the article 21 stipulates the fight against all the forms of gender or sexual orientation discrimination; and the article 23 establishes equality between women and men in all the fields. This article also states that the positive actions in favour of the less represented gender are not contrary to the principle of equal treatment.

The Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union considers that gender-based violence constitutes a violation of the article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Also the European Court of Human Rights has tackled gender-based violence in different fields and consider it contrary to the rights of the European Convention on Human Rights.

As we can see, legislation is very wide and these are just some examples. But, how can be penalties applied after breaking some of these laws? The protection measures for victims are criminal measures in some countries of Europe, whilst in other countries they are of civil nature and in others, both.

This complex legal framework is explained in detail in the book La Orden de Protección Europea, La protección de víctimas de violencia de género y cooperación judicial penal en Europa (European Protective Order, Protection of Gender-Based Violence Victims and Judicial Cooperation in Europe), a book which is the result of a R&D project run from the Universitat de València. It is written by Elena Martínez García, Juan Carlos Vegas Aguilar and Teresa Freixes Sanjuán (who sings the prologue) and responds to a research guided by Dr Elena Martínez (professor of the Master’s Degree in Law and Gender-Based Violence) to facilitate the transposition in Spain of the Directive 2011/99/UE, regulating of the European Protection Order, from the perspective of its application to the gender-based violence victims.

The book is available here and you can see all the published works of Dr Elena Martínez here.