Harsher rape policy rejected

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 8

Harsher rape policy rejected

PA Wellington The Court of Appeal decision which refused a tougher sentencing policy against rapists would be referred to the select committee studying the Rape Law Reform Bill, said the Minister of Justice, Mr McLay, on Thursday. In a reserved decision, the Court said that the Crown had provided no evidence, statistical or otherwise, to support the call for harsher sentences. No evidence existed to suggest that anything was achieved to deter future rapes when punishment that was already severe was made harsher still, it said. The president of the Court, Sir Owen Woodhouse, delivering the decision, said that High Court judges had tended to impose more severe prison sentences in recent years, but there had not been any dramatic upward movement in the terms imposed. “Nonetheless there have been political pronouncements about the matter with strong extraneous pressure on them to take individually a much harsher line when dealing with cases of rape. Now there is public interest in what is to happen,” he said. The Crown appealed against four sentences that it said were manifestly inadequate and two men convicted of rape appealed on the ground that the sentences were excessive. .

The Court refused all applications. Mr McLay said it would not be appropriate for him to comment on the decision as such.

However, as the Court had now made a definitive statement on rape sentencing he would refer the Court’s decision to the statutes revision committee which was now studying the rape bill. Parliament could properly consider whether the present policy of the courts as defined in the Court of Appeal decision adequately reflected its views on the matter, Mr McLay said.

“If the courts feel that in the context of the present law that is the policy they must follow and Parliament disagrees, then the proper course of action is for Parliament to change the law.”

He rejected criticism by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Palmer, that he had tried to influence court sentences by comments he had made last year, and says he will continue to comment on court decisions.

Mr McLay said that he had said that he thought that an average of just over four years sentence was not long enough, in the context of considering a law change and increasing the maximum penalty. The speech was given before the present bill was introduced to Parliament.

He had said that such a law change was the proper and constitutional means for Parliament to indicate to the courts that it believed heavier sentences should be imposed. “For Mr Palmer therefore to suggest that I tried to influence sentences by remarks I made in a speech is a complete misrepresentation of what I said and he knows it.” “Mr Palmer is suggesting that I am not entitled to comment on court decisions. Every recognised constitutional text makes it clear that such comments can be made just as they can also be made by judges, lawyers, academics, and newspaper editors. All that is required is a measure of restraint as to the way in which such statements are made.” Mr Palmer said that it was to be hoped the Government would now cease in its “misguided attempts to try and influence the courts by political demands for heavier sentences.” “It is wrong for Ministers to try and influence sentences by remarks they make in public speeches. Both the Prime Minister and the present Deputy Prime Minister did so last year in a particularly improper way,” he said. “The effect of those statements was to try and place political pressure on the judges. “The foolishness of such political pronouncements is )

shown by the fact that when the matter was properly argued in court the claim for greater severity could not be supported by the Solicitor-General by any material, statistical or otherwise, which was placed before the court,” Mr Palmer said. “The Crown’s argument is the Court of Appeal completely failed to justify the political demands that had been made by the Ministers.” The Auckland District Law Society public issues committee said on Wednesday that Ministerial criticism of judges and their decisions might tend to — and probably was calculated to — lower the court’s authority. In a report the committee noted a marked increase in the number of instances of politicians commenting on and criticising decisions of the courts. Mr J. A. Banks, the member of Parliament for Whangarei, one politician the report cited, was quoted as criticising in Parliament “weak-kneed judicial officers who let the police down time and time again ... spending too much time mollycoddling the thugs.” He has accused judges of not having “the courage to do their job properly and fairly so the average citizen believed that only an optimist could hope for justice in

the courts of New Zealand.” Mr Banks said that he was not at all moved by the committee’s comments “regarding political attacks on the judiciary.” “I believe the courts have a responsibility to mirror public concern. “In recent times the courts generally have failed this responsibility and betrayed the people they serve.” The Court of Appeal also found the large number of young Maori rape offenders “worrying.” Five out of six appeals being contested by the Court involved young Maoris, said • Sir Owen Woodhouse. Police files indicated that up to 45 per cent of offenders were Maori. “That figure in itself cannot be regarded as definitive but it does point to a difficult problem. It appeares to be a relatively recent phenomenon,” the Court said. “Earlier statistics may confirm this and show that in social terms things have gone wrong in the intervening years.” The reason had to lie in sociological areas. The Court said that it decided it should hesitate long before increasing a general level of sentencing which would bear particularly heavily on one section of society or tend to single out young Maoris as a racial group.