Page 2871 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 1991
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These comments I make are still relevant to the interviewing of a child. This video link arrangement that has been developed allows the first interview with the infant to be used throughout the initial proceedings, if appropriate. It absolves the child from giving one interview after another - one for the first group of policemen who take the complaint in the evening, and then another for a specialist group, and then another as a preliminary to aid the prosecution lawyers in preparing their case, and so on. It is those multi-interviews that are most demeaning to women victims of assault at times. They remain demeaning because that process has not changed too much, except that at the sexual assault unit investigation stage we have the most developed and refined procedures in the nation.
Mr Speaker, it is important to balance the gains you get from more pleas of guilty at less cost to the judicial process as a result of videoing accused people and witnesses or complainants straight after the events. The number of guilty pleas in the Tasmanian criminal court system has increased remarkably since lawyers got the capacity to be given a colour video of their client just after the event. It has resulted in some quite significant changes of position by some of the more illustrious defence counsel in Tasmania.
Mr Stefaniak: Good to see.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Stefaniak interjects and says, "Good to see". It is the likes of Mr Stefaniak that we have to balance out in this process, because they are going all out for a conviction. There is a subtle manner of working a video to highlight issues, to allow an overemphasis on certain issues. As the Chief Magistrate has said, the taking of the video is probably the most crucial point of the whole process.
There are some old-fashioned things still obtaining in our system. Mr Stefaniak knows that we still test a child to see whether that child understands what divine retribution is. You have to test the child to see whether they understand the oath. That has been dropped in New South Wales. I think the Law Reform Commission has recommended that it be dropped. I do not think there are any moves afoot yet to drop it in the Territory. I believe that we should be looking at that because good evidence is sometimes lost. The real test should be whether the child understands the need to be truthful and the obligation to assist the court, and whether the child is rational, at any age.
At the moment I am not raising concerns about whether there are any denials of justice and the rest; it is just that we need to move ahead not only with the camera but also with our thinking on this process. I also believe that we should look at the prospect of using child interpreters.
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