Belgian justice
The evening of 17 december 2007, when we were closing the shop where I work, we were robbed. Like, in the real bad movie style, 2 men coming in with a hat where you only see the eyes, waving with a gun in front of us. In 10 minutes, we were lying down, ducktaped, and they were gone with the money from the safe. They are caught some months later, thanks to video surveillance, and in prison waiting for their trial.
And now, yesterday (15 sept), I received a letter thet their trial is 17 sept, and if I want some money (what 's the word? claiming money because of psychological distress) I need to come to the court, or send a lawyer, with bills from the shrink (I didn't go to one, I just clung to my hubbie and I am over it now), and maybe a claim for just some moral distress. The letter said 'URGENT' in big red words, but that just ain't no excuse. I don't care very much about it. I know my boss has some lawyers on the case and she asked money for every empoyee that was there at the time. We're not really counting on getting anything, anyway.
The letter said that if I couldn't come personally, I could get some sort of pro-bono legal aid in special departement of the court, open from 9 to 11, ...only 2 hours!.
I know my boss is handling everything, so I don't have to bother about that. But I wonder if every victim in our justice system has that 'much' time to prepare for trial. If I needed to take care of this myself, I would have needed days off, without being sure I could get my paperworks in time. I don't even have a lawyer...
hooray for justice...