Parts of rupe law outdated—Mr McLay

Press, 14 June 1983, Page 6

Parts of rupe law outdated—Mr McLay

PA Wellington The Attorney-General, Mr McLay, yesterday branded parts of the rape law as “100 years out of date” and said that he wanted a planned new legislation to give more protection to rape victims.

He was speaking as the second part of a big study to prepare for new rape legislation became public, containing criticism of police procedures and the court system by rape victims.

“I think that in the past, too often, the emphasis has been perhaps on the offender or the alleged offender rather than the victim,” said Mr McLay. “We have still got to protect the offender against any possible injustice but in that context I believe there is still a lot we can do to protect the victim as well.”

Yesterday’s report was the second half of a study conducted by the Justice Department and Victoria University’s Criminology Institute in preparation for new legislation planned to enter Parliament later this year.

It comprised the research reports on which the recommendations of volume one, released in March, were based and Mr McLay said that there was nothing in the second book which would warrant extending the deadline for public submissions.

The deadline for submissions, which Mr McLay told journalists had so far represented “the widest possible interest and involvement,” has been set for Friday. The Labour member of Parliament for Wellington Central, Ms Fran Wilde, telegraphed Mr McLay yesterday asking for the dead-

line to be extended because it gave “virtually no time” to groups preparing submissions.

Mr McLay said that the closing date had already been put forward a month and he had ruled out an extension beyond Friday. Yesterday’s report included reports of interviews between researchers and 50 rape victims, and detailed the changes that they and other groups would like to see made in the law. Some reflected the recommendations of the study’s directors, Mel Smith and Warren Young, who have advocated among other things abolishment of the provisions that under law a husband cannot rape his wife. Other recommendations arising from the study have included the suggestion that District Court judges, not Justices of the Peace, should preside at preliminary hearings, and that warnings from judge to jury of the dangers of convicting on uncorroborated evidence from one witness should be changed. The rape victims’suggestions for changes in the law and police procedures included a specially-trained policewomen’s unit to deal with rape cases, the right of appeal for victims when alleged offenders were acquitted, the setting of minimum not maximum sentences, adequate support during court hearings, “greater sensitivity” in presenting exhibits during trials, and restraints on press and television coverage.

One said “attitudes should get away from emphasis on malicious or false complaints, fabrications and rape fantasies.”

When asked if these suggestions would be taken into account when the law was drafted, Mr McLay said that they had already been brought into the main recommendations.

"But clearly, the views expressed by those who have been specifically interviewed ... will definitely be taken into account”

Mr McLay said that the next step in the process was to formulate a final Government view to incorporate into law. He hoped to introduce the new legislation into Parliament this session, but whether the bill would be passed this year he was not able to say. So far, he said, submissions which would be used to help formulate policy had come from church groups, political organisations of all persuasions, social welfare groups, virtually every type of women’s organisation, community groups and in some cases groups of individuals who had formed solely to make submissions.

“It is probably going to prove one of the more interesting exercises in public participation in the formulations of new laws,” said Mr McLay.

On the criticism in the report of police procedures, Mr McLay said that some of the women interviewed had been raped several years ago and since then procedures of the police and medical profession had improved. Rape laws and procedures were “in some cases 100 years out of date, because the attitudes that formulated them grew up in the middle to late nineteenth century.

“I am determined to see that the changes made are the right ones.”