Die Doppelstellung des Opferzeugen

This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the tensions resulting from the dual role of victim witnesses in criminal trials. Based on an in-depth analysis of their interdependent functions as victims and witnesses, it establishes the tense relationship between active victim participation and the ascertainment of truth. The author concludes that active victim participation certainly has a right to exist but needs to step back if that right hinders the truth being established. On this basis, he then examines the individual rights of active victims. For this purpose, he evinces the influence of each of those respective rights on the ascertainment of truth by means of psychological principles, in order to then draw conclusions which are partly addressed to legislators but in particular to the practitioner of law in each individual case.