Bill’s ‘serious shortcomings’

Press, 14 July 1982, Page 10

Bill’s ‘serious shortcomings’

"When viewed aeainst (he needs of the vu tims of domestic violence. (he Domestic Protection Bill now before Parliament may be seen to have four very serious shortcomings .. With these ominous words, the Christchurch Battered Women's Support Group began the summary of its case when making submissions on the hill to the Statutes Revision Committee of Parliament. The submissions were prepared on behalf of the group hv its co-ordinator. Ms Dons Church, and its spokesman. Dr John Church The four •very serious shortcomings” were 3 The bill n. ide no provision tor any kind of exclusive possession order • over famiiv clijftcls. and no pmvision lor the recov erv . of any chattels which had been removed from the family residence while proceedings were in progress. • As worded, the non-vio-lence order was likely to be almost completely ineffective in deterring further assaults. Clause 8 should be deleted from the bill entirely. Clause 8 places restrictions on police powers of arrest conferred in Clause 7 for breach of a non-violence

Order. Clause 8 says: "No membtr of the police shall arrest any person under Section 7 unless that member of the police believes, after considering the seriousness of the act that constituted the alleged breach, the time that has elapsed since the alleged breach was committed. the restraining effect on that person of other persons or circumstances, and the need for a cooling off period, that the arrest of that person is reasonably necessary for the protection of the person for whose protection the order was made." The group claimed any legislation designed to assist the victims of domestic violence had also to recognise that the police normally avoid by all possible means any kind of enforcement response after domestic offences. This was accomplished by routinely redefining all but the most serious domestic offences as "domestic disputes." During the past four years, support group clients had reported to the police well over 100 breaches of nonmolestation orders. In onlysix cases had these complaints resulted in a prosecution by the police. It was almost impossible to persuade the police to prosecute a violent spouse for a domestic offence unless.

the offence was quite serious and the complainant was very insistent indeed that het complaint be taken and investigated. If the authors ol th' Domestic Protection Bui intended that the police take a certain kind of action follow mg certain kinds of offences then the bill would need to spell out.very clearly indeed the circumstances under which the police were to be required to act. the group said. • The requirements for ex parte applications set out in Clause 25 were the wrong requirements. They were also so stringent that no battered woman would ever succeed in mounting an ex parte apoiiration. Clause 25 should be deleted and replaced with: "An order under this Act ■may be made ex parte if the Court is satisfied that the applicant has left the household residence in order to protect their safety or the safety of a child of the family and the delay which would be caused by proceeding on notice would or might entail unnecessary hardship: or the delay which would be caused by proceeding on notice would or might entail a risk to the personal safety

of the applicant or any child u f the apphiants lamtly."

© The hill as worded failed tn correr t a very serious flaw in the non molestation order.

Tiie support group said that ar”, legislation designed to mitigate the effects of domestic violence had to recognise that the battered woman almost always left the family home, usually with the children, before instituting any kind of legal proceedings.

She did this because she knew that any legal action on her part would almost certainly provoke another round of assaults and because leaving the family homo was the only way in which she could protect herself from these assaults.

Effective legal relief for the victims of domestic violence. therefore, should always be based on the presumption that the applicant had already left the family home and might, in many cases, be too frightened to return unless she succeeded in achieving some additional protection, the support group said. - OLIVER RIDDELL in Wellington.