Page 3447 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 13 October 1993
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The Committee believes that the preparation of VISs for all offences would not necessarily be the most appropriate use of finite resources.
Paragraph 138 says that the definition of which offences should be the subject of victim impact statements need not necessarily exclude minor offence categories but should allow what the committee calls flexibility and discretion. I think, Madam Speaker, that this is a very sensible idea. On some occasions, even though the offence may be, in terms of the law, a minor one, the circumstances may make its effect on the victim considerably different from those normally evident. This is, to some extent, what the lawyers call the eggshell skull principle. The judge or magistrate hearing the case should be given discretion to call for the presentation of a victim impact statement when he or she deems it necessary or beneficial to the range of sentencing options which are being considered.
I must say that I concur with the view of the report that victim impact statements cannot be used by a victim in order effectively to seek vengeance or to dramatise criminal proceedings, and that, unfortunately, is occasionally the case. However, having said that, I think it is essential that the court be made aware of the need to balance proceedings when they take place; to give the victim some input into proceedings, which, frankly, has not been available in a very positive way in the past.
The report makes some comment about sets of purposes being achieved by the presentation to the court of victim impact statements. One of the most important purposes achieved by the use of these statements is to offer victims a direct input into the court to be taken into consideration by the judicial officer in handing down a sentence to the offender. In turn, this provides some satisfaction to the victim in that the victim will be able to have his or her perspective put clearly before the court. The problem with our system has been that all too often victims feel left out. They feel no involvement in the process of justice and no satisfaction at the end because their views were perceived to be, if not in fact, ignored.
Madam Speaker, I welcome the recommendation in this report to guarantee victims the right to an explanation of a decision to accept a plea for a lesser charge. I note that the Attorney is proposing to commission, or in fact already has commissioned, the drafting of a Bill to effect some of the recommendations made by this report. I believe that it would be very helpful to know what those particular recommendations are. There are some elements of this report which my party strongly supports and which I would like to see put into legislation at the first opportunity.
All too often victims of quite serious crimes are left perplexed at the decision by counsel to accept a plea bargain; yet, in some cases, this would be a perfectly valid decision - for example, where the prosecution needs to obtain sufficient evidence to prove the original charge and cannot do that; where it is either impossible or unlikely that they will have sufficient evidence to do just that. An explanation by the prosecution to the victim on why a lesser charge was accepted might help to restore the victim's faith in the justice system. I think failure to explain what has gone on in a court case very often causes hurt and resentment. Explanations to victims of reasons not to proceed with prosecutions are essential for the same reasons.
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