A justice system that works for survivors

April 23, 2024
Justice

As a society, we place a heavy burden on those who have experienced a serious crime as a victim, survivor or witness.

We call on them to tell their experiences, often again and again, despite trauma, disbelief and outright hostility. It is a burden that most are eager to bear, not for revenge or gain, but to prevent others from suffering in the same way.

They perform a precious service to their community by telling their stories, and they do so with truth, grace and courage. So you would think that the least the community, and the institutions that represent it, could do is to treat them with respect and humanity.

Far too often that is not the case.

We have an adversarial legal system, but in criminal cases the adversaries are supposed to be the prosecutor, representing the state, and the defense. Survivors and witnesses are not opponents, and yet they watch how they are treated:

• where the trauma of their original experience was intensified, even overshadowed, by the trauma of the legal process;

• central to the facts of the case, yet the last to know what is happening and why;

• and as pawns in courtroom games and collateral damage in performative conflicts.

It is no coincidence that all of this is overwhelmingly true of one type of crime, a type I know all too well from my previous work in the Rape Crisis network, and I refer colleagues to this previous work included in my register of interests. .

The survivors supported by my former colleagues not only bear the direct consequences of their experience, but also struggle through a toxic morass of misogyny, structural violence and a male impunity embedded in tradition, assumptions and myths.

The Bill before us today is part of a long process of research, investigation, consideration and consultation on these issues. I would now like to pay tribute to all who have been part of that work, in whatever capacity, and to all who continue it.

Yes, the provisions pose a challenge, not least because of a long tradition. But the changes this bill proposes are not being made on a whim, for the sake of the change itself or necessarily to follow other jurisdictions. They are made because the evidence suggests that justice, both process and outcome, urgently requires it.

Because it is not only a verdict that judges cannot explain, that stigmatizes suspects and leaves survivors traumatized, but that only serves to spare juries from the most difficult decision. Because we know it’s hard to judge men for what deep down many people still expect from ‘real men’.

It is not just that courts, offices and police stations are staffed with people who are still unaware, or perhaps prefer not to know, of the consequences of trauma and the need to act appropriately.

It’s not just that the juries are so large that not all members need to participate fully.

It is not just that abusers in many civil cases should still have the opportunity to personally cross-examine those they have abused, and that vulnerable witnesses should be denied the protection they would receive in other proceedings.

It is not just that rape survivors should be questioned about their most intimate lives and relationships without the benefit of independent legal advice, or be named against their will on social media.

And it’s not just that women have to endure all this, all the horrors of reliving their trauma, explaining their pain and delaying, perhaps for years, their hope for resolution, only to have their truth denied. see through the stubborn persistence of rape myths, those old lies of inappropriate responses, invisible emotions, delayed reporting and false accusations.

It is perhaps encouraging that the pilot court proposal is the most controversial and contentious part of this bill. While the Tory government in England is doing its best to suppress even the knowledge that juries can acquit a defendant, such as a climate protector, if that is fair, it is a relief to hear that their Scottish colleagues have such affection for juries.

Because juries matter. And it matters that they hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I firmly believe that any pilot project established under these provisions must be designed and implemented with sensitivity, the active participation of all relevant stakeholders, strict time constraints and in combination with serious and urgent work to address the widespread rape myths suits, not just in jury trials. rooms, but everywhere.

I will vote for this bill today, not out of triumph or challenge, but in silent remembrance of all those for whom it came too late. Let us do justice to them, to those who are waiting now and to those who will thank us in the future.