Galway Bay fm newsroom - A woman whose daughter was murdered in Connemara in 2008 is to challenge the rejection of her claim for compensation as a victim of crime.
Magdalena Vonkova from Prague is the mother of 19 year old Nicola Vonkova who was murdered by 24 year old Jakub Fidler at Inverin in July 2008.
Ms Vonkova died from strangulation following a row about spying on Fidler's email and instant messaging accounts.
Jakub Fidler is serving life imprisonment after pleading guilty in 2010 to murder.
Her mother is seeking High Court permission to challenge the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal’s refusal of her application for compensation because the murdered woman and Fidler were residing in the same house at the time of her death.
The compensation scheme provides no money is payable “where the offender and the victim were living together as members of the same household at the time the injuries were inflicted”.
Ms Vonkova and Fidler lived in the same house but were not members of a household in the strict sense, the mother’s lawyers say.
According to the Irish Times, the High Court has given her lawyers permission to seek to bring a judicial review against the tribunal, the Minister for Justice and the State.
It is claimed the compensation scheme’s exclusion rule is a breach of the mother’s rights to a fair hearing and/or family life and/or to an effective remedy under the European Convention on Human Rights.
