"Whatever may have been acceptable in earlier times I do not believe that a justice system crafted without the fundamental objective of identifying the truth should be accepted today."

Melbourne, Victoria

Friday 19 August, 2016

The Hon. Justice Peter McClellan AM
Chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Addressing the Judicial College of Victoria's Historical Sexual Offences program - meeting and managing community expectations.

[...]

Conclusion

Lord Judge has observed:

‘Our system is adversarial. It depends on the proposition that the results of the adversarial system will represent justice. But we have to face the reality that if the adversarial system does not produce justice, that is justice to everyone involved in the process, it will have to be re-examined and it should be re-examined.’46

Traditional aspects of the adversarial system have already been eroded in response to a recognition that they were ill-suited to securing justice for victims of sexual offences. For both complainants and the broader community this was, quite rightly, unacceptable. Although many offences involve harm, when harm is said to come from the breach of intimate boundaries that we are all entitled to have respected, it is important to recognize that, just as the accused has an interest in the truth emerging, so too does the victim. The emergence of the truth is important both to provide justice for the accused but also for the complainant. Whatever may have been acceptable in earlier times I do not believe that a justice system crafted without the fundamental objective of identifying the truth should be accepted today.