The Significance of Recognising Domestic Violence, in Light of Estonian Legal Experts' Opinion and the Prospects for Systematising the Relevant Legislation

AuthorRaul Narits, Silvia Kaugia, Iris Pettai
Pages128-138
128 JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 24/2016
Raul Narits Silvia Kaugia Iris Pettai
Professor Dr. iur., Lecturer PhD, Director
of Comparative Jurisprudence of Comparative Jurisprudence Estonian Institute for
University of Tartu University of Tartu Open Society Research
The Signif‌i cance of Recognising
Domestic Violence, in Light
of Estonian Legal Experts’
Opinion and the Prospects for
Systematising the Relevant
Legislation
Domestic violence has been under public scrutiny for some time internationally as well as in Estonia.
A highly negative social phenomenon, it causes considerable harm to individuals’ basic rights and thereby
poses an acute legal problem. Accordingly, the objective with this article is to address the attitudes of Esto-
nian practising legal experts towards domestic violence from the perspective of recognising it and to sup-
port the idea of exploring options for further systematising the relevant legislation.
1. Awareness of domestic violence
as a factor changing attitudes and mentality
The world began to pay attention to domestic violence*1 relatively recently, in the 1960s, when the unex-
pectedly high frequency of violent incidents in intimate relations became apparent. Non-governmental
organisations began emerging to address it: The Battered Women Movement formed in London in 1971, the
f‌i rst women’s shelters and crisis centres were established at about this time, etc.
Awareness of domestic violence drew attention to a need for legal experts to address the problems from
new angles. Martin Partington, a leading British expert on criminal law, has pointed out the issue, stating that
ef‌f orts to solve domestic-violence problems at the legislative and political levels have brought considerable
Қ The term ‘domestic violence’ shall be used here to refer to all acts of physical, sexual, psychological, or economic violence that
occur within the family / domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator
shares or has shared a residence with the victim (this def‌i nition comes from the Council of Europe’s convention on prevent-
ing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, қҙҚҚ).
http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/JI.2016.24.13

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT