The taskforce set up by the NSW Attorney General to investigate ways to make it easier for rape victims to take their attacker to court and to report the crime in the first place seems to have led to some action in regards to our judicial system.
Under the changes, judges and police will be asked to attend education seminars as part of the reforms.
Victims will have access to one-stop sexual assault centres so they no longer have to separately visit hospitals, police and community service organisations following their ordeal.
The changes also reduce the number of times victims have to give evidence and face cross-examination, and some will have the option of giving evidence through a third person.
The Opposition has come out with the de rigeuer criticism that Oppositions tend to participate in, saying that the changes don’t go far enough in sentencing perpetrators. They seem to have missed the point that these changes are about making it easier for victims to come forward which will ultimately end up in more convictions. These laws weren’t about sentences, they were about targeting the obvious flaws in the system that intimidate victims, put them on trial and generally make it more traumatic and difficult for them to follow through with a trial.
