From the mind of Hamish

My views on news, current events, sports and the general goings on in my life.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I hate suppression orders. It makes it so much harder to track down information. I am, of course, referring to the leaflet drop following the Louise Nicholas rape trial. What did the leaflet say? Well, I know but I'm not saying. It's not hard to find either.

The facts raised in the leaflet are interesting, but of no relevance to a criminal trial in this country. Yet we have these vigilantes who cannot accept the result of the trial, an acquittal. As I wasn't a juror in this case I'm not privy to all the facts, but from what was presented in the media it seemed like a very difficult case to win. No eye witnesses, no physical evidence. Simply a case of "he said, she said" and that's almost impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I was disappointed to hear the media saying that jurors believed the defendants over the complainant, when it was almost certainly a case of the prosecution failing to prove their case.

However it did bring up an couple of interesting things I feel our legal system lacks. Firstly I truly believe we need rape shield laws. I can understand people's distaste for the "sluts and nuts" defense and I believe we need to protect women from this sort of defense where they are more on trial than the defendant. Essentially the "sluts and nuts" defense bring the complainant sexual history out in front of the court and argues that she was a willing participant who later complained out of remorse because she's a bit crazy.

Secondly we need a Statute of Limitations, there have been two high profile rape cases dating back to the early 80s recently. The simple question I ask is, why is it now we're hearing about it? Why didn't these people complain back when it happened? Why did they wait 20 years?

Yeah, I hate suppression orders. All they seem to achieve is making the information harder to find. I know who the All Black convicted of beating up his wife is, I knew about Graham Caphill before his name was made public, I know the contents of the leaflets about the Louise Nicholas trial. None were particularly hard to find if you know where to look. In this day of rapid exchange of information it's impossible to suppress anything. I guess Stewart Brand was right, "Information wants to be free."