Access to justice and violence against women in Costa Rica (2022-2023):

a critique of judicial treatment from a feminist perspective

Abstract

This article seeks to theorize, from a feminist perspective, the main reasons for the termina- tion of criminal cases related to Violence against Women in Costa Rica, in order to determine whether women achieve adequate access to justice. Public information from the Costa Rican Public Prosecutor’s Office was used to quantify the cases that were processed to trial or that were terminated in the country’s courts and tribunals. This was done by obtaining statistics indicating the reason for the termination of the case for each law or crime analyzed, includ- ing among the possibilities: dismissal, prosecution, accumulation, acquittal, filing, opening to trial, lack of jurisdiction, or transfer. Once the data was established, theoretical explanations were offered to support the figures obtained and justify the need for a gender perspective in crimes against women. The results show that in the crimes and laws analyzed, most cases were dismissed, which reveals patterns in the Costa Rican State that allow gender violence by preventing victims from accessing a trial and therefore, effective judicial protection, given that the laws and judicial procedures do not contemplate a gender perspective.