Special court will handle sex crimes
By Ian Munro
A specialist court dealing only with sex offences will be created within Melbourne Magistrates Court and could be extended to the County Court, Attorney-General Rob Hulls said yesterday.
Mr Hulls told a forum of international experts that Victoria was considering changing the law later this year to further limit questioning of children in sex cases and cross-examination about victims' sexual history.
Other possible reforms included preventing accused people who represent themselves from personally cross-examining victims and making closed circuit television the usual way victims give evidence in sexual assault cases.
Last month The Age revealed that a teenage girl attempted suicide after she was questioned by a County Court judge about why she wanted to give televised evidence from outside the courtroom in a case of alleged incest.
Mr Hulls said the specialist sex offence list would be modelled on examples from Canada and South Africa, and followed the introduction of specialist drug and Koori courts in Victoria.
Mr Hulls said that the legal system was guilty of traumatising the victims of sexual offences. Victims had been cast as irrational, unreliable, hysterical and even responsible for their experiences.
He said that international experience showed that assigning judges to a specialist list and creating a specialist prosecutors unit had transformed court culture. Discussions had been held about extending the system to the County Court.
"For too long, the law has failed women," Mr Hulls said. "We must eradicate the entrenched bias of the law and its procedures, and aim instead for a legal system that respects and acknowledges the experiences of victims of sexual crime rather than compounds their distress."
He said new approaches were needed to overcome entrenched practices in dealing with sexual offences. "There is a growing realisation that an effective response to sexual assault does not sit neatly inside the traditional law and order debate," Mr Hulls said.
He said the Government was aiming for a round of legislative reform in the spring session of Parliament, followed by a second round next year.
Chief Magistrate Ian Gray said the sexual offences list followed two trials. It would operate statewide through suburban and major regional courts, and be overseen by a co-ordinating magistrate and a senior, specially trained registrar.
"We would aim to have this operating next year, if not the beginning of the year then certainly no later than halfway through next year," Mr Gray said. "There will be particular magistrates at particular courts assigned to hear the cases in this list."
The head of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Professor Marcia Neave, said it was too difficult for victims to report offences and the legal system could be a gruelling experience for victims.
"People find it almost as traumatic to go through the criminal justice system as it is to experience the assault in the first place," she said.
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