Our Focus
Mapping protection order legislation in 27 EU Member States
The first aim of the POEMS project was to to provide an accurate and up-to-date reflection of national legislation and practices in the field of protection orders. With the help of 27 national reports, written by legal experts, we tried to meticulously map and compare the relevant laws and practices in the Member States
Assessing the level of protection order legislation and its impact in practice
The second goal was to develop an analytical perspective on the level of protection provided by the Member States. We formulated indicators of what constitutes appropriate legal protection and assessed whether the Member States were up to par with these criteria. We also identified promising practices and possible gaps in protection and tried to establish the functioning and enforcement of protection orders in practice with the help of 58 victim interviews.
The functioning of the EPO and the EPM
A third goal was to assess how the Directive on the European protection order Directive (EU Directive 2011/99/EU) and the Regulation on protection measures in civil matters (EU Regulation 606/2013 ) would function in the light of the varying state laws and practices regarding protection orders. The project aimed to identify potential problems with the implementation and functioning of the two mutual recognition instruments in the Member States after the implementation deadline of 11 January 2015
About
Many victims of repetitive violence, such as domestic violence or stalking, have an increased need for protection against their offender. One way of safeguarding them is to issue a protection order. Previous research has shown that protection order legislation shows large discrepancies across the EU, but we lack a clear overview of how victim protection is constructed in the different Member States. The POEMS study has tried to address this problem by making an inventory of protection order legislation in 27 Member States. This study furthermore assessed the functioning of these protection orders in practice by means of an explorative victim study in four Member States (Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal). The aim was to find best practices and gaps in protection order legislation on a national level. A final goal was to assess how the different approaches on a national level could impact the implementation of the European Protection Order Directive and the Regulation on mutual recognition of protection measures in civil matters.”