BELATED JUSTICE
14.06.2008
EDITORIAL.
Systemic legal problems on Cape York must be fixed
QUEENSLAND Chief Justice Paul de Jersey and the Court of Appeal yesterday repaired what all right-thinking people recognised as an appalling miscarriage of justice. In imposing custodial sentences on five of the nine males who raped a 10-year-old girl at the Cape York community of Aurukun in 2006, the court sent a clear message that rape -- anywhere, at any time and in any culture -- is an abominable crime that warrants severe punishment. Three men, aged 25, 18 and 17 at the time of the rape, received six-year sentences. They will be eligible for parole in June 2010. One boy, aged 14 at the time of the offence, was detained for three years and another, aged 13 at the time, was detained for two years. All six juveniles involved had convictions recorded.
These sentences close a shameful chapter in Australia's legal history that was remedied only after it was exposed in December last year by The Australian's Tony Koch. In his first report, Koch revealed that Cairns District Court judge Sarah Bradley had allowed all nine offenders to walk free after they had pleaded guilty. The revelation prompted an international outcry, leading to the state Government's appeal. The Australian's reports also revealed the incompetence and indifference of north Queensland child safety officers, who failed to tell police that the little girl had contracted gonorrhoea.
As well as redressing bad errors ofjudgment by the prosecutor and judge in this case, the Court of Appeal report acknowledged serious inadequacies in the justice system in far north Queensland. The sentencing process, the court noted, ``appears to have been conducted with excessive haste and in too summary a fashion'' after Judge Bradley had dealt with 18 to 20 matters earlier that day. Unfortunately, such haste appears to be the norm in Cape York courts. This a serious challenge for the Queensland Government.
Following The Australian's initial revelations about the Aurukun Nine, Premier Anna Bligh ordered a review of all sex offence cases in Cape York over the past two years. Released yesterday, after the Court of Appeal judgment, the review, by Peter Davis SC, revealed that judges visiting the Cape have to churn through hundreds of cases in a few days. Given Mr Davis's view that ``the way the circuits are being run, the only surprising factor about the Aurukun Nine case is that there haven't been similar disasters before'', the Bligh Government has no option but to overhaul the system with appropriate resources.
The government, the judiciary and the legal profession must also reform the ``culture'' Mr Davis identified. It is not appropriate for judges to meet community justice groups outside of court. Nor can a ``culture'' be tolerated in which prosecutors and defence counsel decide appropriate sentences and judges agree. That, Mr Davis said, was what went wrong in the Aurukun Nine case, with the Crown calling for non-custodial sentences, the defence agreeing and the judge, after initial reservations, going along with them.
Until the deficiencies are rectified, another ``disaster'' is a real possibility.
