Investigation and prosecution 6/15

56. Most of the States indicated that investigations and prosecutions were carried out under the responsibility of the ministry of the interior, the police or the ministry of justice.

57. Sweden reported that the National Board of Health and Welfare had been charged with collecting information from relevant authorities concerned with the investigation of lethal violence and providing feedback to these authorities on how to better prevent and respond to similar cases in the future.

58. In Canada, specific spousal abuse policies were introduced in all jurisdictions within the country by the mid-1980’s to ensure that the same criminal standard was applied to spousal offences as would be applied to any other crime against the person. Such pro-prosecution policies required that spousal abuse cases should be prosecuted where, based upon all of the evidence, there was a reasonable prospect of conviction and it was in the public interest to prosecute. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had established a national policy on violence in relationships, which requires swift police intervention to protect victims.

59. In Guatemala, a series of general guidelines regulated the investigation and prosecution, crime scene management, collection and preservation of evidence, as well as for the application of the law against femicide and other forms of violence against women. Its primary objective was to institutionalize a working methodology to strengthen and guide the investigation and criminal prosecution of the crime of femicide.

60. The national police of Pakistan had established a Gender Crime Cell with the responsibility to develop policies for police concerning the prevention of  gender-based crime, which had formulated standard operating procedures for dealing with women victims of violence in 2009. The national police monitored the implementation of these procedures.

https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/UNODC.CCPCJ.EG.8.2014.2-English.pdf