Page 2560 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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and by the Criminal Law Consultative Committee. This legislation was developed under the previous Government and has been reviewed and endorsed by the present Labor Government.
The television evidence system was set up in response to community concern that children who are the victims of sexual abuse are often subject to emotional trauma when they have to give evidence in open court, often in the presence of the accused person. Such children have already suffered physically and emotionally, and it would be an uncaring society which did not do all that was possible to protect the victims of such abuse from a further unnecessary emotional ordeal in the courtroom.
A second reason for the television evidence system is to enable the court to better determine the facts of the case. It is unfortunately true that most children who are sexually abused are abused by older family members or friends of the family. These persons are often authority figures and, if they are present when evidence is given in open court, the child may understandably be reluctant to fully disclose the facts of what happened. By removing the child from the presence of the accused person in court, the child is shielded from some of the trauma of reliving the experience of abuse and is able to give evidence in a far less threatening environment more conducive to establishing the facts of the case.
The television evidence system was introduced into the ACT Magistrates Court in 1989 by a Commonwealth ordinance, as a trial project monitored by the Australian Law Reform Commission. The commission is now preparing its report on the project and there is considerable interest from other jurisdictions in the success of that project. The ordinance, by operation of a sunset clause, expired on 23 July this year. The immediate need is thus for legislation to be enacted to enable the Magistrates Court to continue using the closed-circuit television evidence system during the time it will take for the evaluation report by the Australian Law Reform Commission to be finalised and considered by this Government.
This Bill is significantly different from the Commonwealth ordinance in only one regard: It extends to the Supreme Court as well as to the Magistrates Court. This provides that court with the legislative capacity to introduce, in the future, a television evidence system similar to that in the Magistrates Court. Otherwise, this Bill is essentially the same as the original Commonwealth ordinance, except for some minor differences in drafting style, extension of the sunset clause to 31 December 1992, and extension of the system to evidence given by children in applications for keep-the-peace orders under the Magistrates Court Act. The latter provision was introduced after the Video Link Evidence Ordinance was enacted. The Chief Magistrate has
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