Page 1582 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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To address these problems, the ACT Magistrates Court pioneered the use in Australia of closed-circuit television for children to give evidence. In 1989 equipment was installed in the court to link the courtroom with another room in the court building from which the child gives evidence. The child is not alone in the separate room; a support person, such as a parent, is also present. Television monitors in the courtroom enable those present, including the magistrate, the accused person and legal representatives, to see and hear the child giving evidence. A wide-angle camera in the child's room enables the magistrate to ensure that the support person with the child does not prompt him or her in any way. A TV screen in the child's room enables the child to see and hear the magistrate and the lawyers in the courtroom. Importantly, the child is not able to see or hear the accused person. The child gives evidence in the same way as it would be given in the courtroom, that is, in response to questions from counsel for the prosecution and then in response to cross-examination by counsel for the defence. The essential difference is that the child is not required to physically confront the accused person.
The system is used in the ACT Magistrates Court, and the legislation that governs its use was evaluated by the Australian Law Reform Commission. The commission strongly supported the use of closed-circuit television for children to give evidence. The main recommendation the commission made was to change the procedure used by the court when a child is to give evidence. At present, a court is required to decide whether a child would suffer mental or emotional harm if required to give evidence in the courtroom or whether the child's evidence would be better ascertained if given by TV. A court may order that the child give evidence by TV only if satisfied as to one or other of those tests. The commission criticised this procedure. It said that "some of the potential benefits to children of using closed-circuit TV are lost because of the uncertainty and complexity" of the procedure. Also it stated that "a procedure which gives rise to protracted legal argument, delay and the exposure of children to additional assessment defeats its purpose of making it easier for children to give evidence".
The commission recommended that the procedure be fundamentally changed so that the normal situation is that the child gives evidence by TV. Under that approach, the court would have to make an order only if the reverse is to apply, that is, that the child gives evidence in the courtroom. The main reason a court might do that is if the child himself or herself preferred to do so. The Bill gives effect to that recommendation. In my view, that shows understanding of and compassion for children in such difficult circumstances, and I am pleased to have this opportunity to support the Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES (8.13): The ACT has pioneered the use of closed-circuit television in court cases involving children. If one thinks about it, it is obvious that many technological changes that have affected other areas of work in the last few decades have not touched our court system to nearly as great an extent as they have other areas of work. I think it is entirely appropriate that we should be pioneering, carefully but firmly, the concept that we should take advantage of such changes as people other than those who are present in a particular place being able to give evidence.
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