Page 2868 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES (11.42): Mr Speaker, this Bill is a continuation of earlier Commonwealth legislation that provided for an experiment to be conducted in the ACT. We do not know, at this stage, whether that experiment is deemed to be successful or not. There is presently a report being prepared for the benefit of the Commonwealth, which has funded this experiment, I understand, and that report, I anticipate, will indicate the long-term future of this system of taking evidence.
I note that the Attorney-General says that he expects the Law Reform Commission to be supportive of the closed-circuit television evidence system and to recommend that it be made permanent in its operation, possibly with some finetuning of operational procedures. Of course, our support for this system must be contingent to some extent on positive feedback from those who administer it within the court system and who have to use it on an ongoing basis. As such, it is entirely appropriate that there remain a sunset clause in the legislation and that we see, at the end of this period of trial, whether we can say that this, indeed, has been a success.
I think it is worth emphasising, Mr Speaker, that there are balances to be preserved in this debate. There are the balances between the rights of victims and the rights of accused people, and the experiment with closed-circuit television as a means of children giving evidence is very much contingent on being able to preserve that balance. If that balance is not attainable, then, of course, the experiment must be deemed to have been a failure and we must seek other ways of ensuring that children are able to give evidence in a way which ensures that justice is done.
My comments in that regard relate to what I think is a very important part of the process of courts and the law, particularly the criminal law, in this country. The awe with which people hold the processes of the law, and in particular the courtroom, in this country is part of the process whereby laws are enforced and administered, and part of the process whereby people obey laws. By that I mean that, if courtrooms had the same ambience as a person's living room, very clearly the onus that falls on people to obey the directives of courts and to respect the officers of courts, namely, in particular, judges and magistrates, and to tell the truth in courts when they are compelled to come before them and give evidence, would be removed.
Unfortunately, to a large extent, we rely heavily on the capacity of the court to persuade people who come before it or have dealings with it to obey the laws that the courts administer. There are simply not enough officers of the law, upholders and enforcers of the law, available in our community to enforce laws if people were disinclined as a
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