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Discrimination and the Roma Community 2014
legal entities responsible. This is not very complicated
but so far there is an almost complete lack of case law
in this area. We must take advantage of the 50 spe-
cial provincial prosecutors set up to deal with hate and
discrimination crime and our police and judicial forces
must work side-by-side with the organisations helping
potential victims of hate and discrimination.
Spain is in the process of building this mechanism. We
are taking steps forward through the creation of po-
lice protocols accompanied by specialised training for
this professional sector but we need to move forward
more decisively. It is not difficult or expensive to set
up an effective system to defend people from hate
and discrimination crimes but does require political will,
training and awareness-raising of the stakeholders if
we expect to generate a powerful protection system,
possibly based on the model developed by Spain to
protect women from gender-based violence. It is high
time that victims of hate crimes be defended, protect-
ed and duly compensated. As is well known, to date
many victims fail to file complaints and instead silently
endure this violation of their rights because they fear
reprisals, do not trust the system and have come to
accept rejection as something normal.
As a professional in the legal field, I believe that proper
enforcement of the law in response to crime corrects
illicit behaviour, teaches people that permissiveness is
not an option and therefore prevents the violation of
people’s rights. In my view, this is the path which needs
to be taken in these matters and our judges and pros-
ecutors have a major role to play.