Banjo,

Thanks at least for making your agenda clear. For particular cases you want to abandon the presumption of innocence and assume that anyone that claims to be a victim is telling the gospel truth. Given the devastating consequences of an erroneous conviction, and the recent case of an innocent man jailed for 22 years for a crime that someone else was later convicted of should give you pause for thought.

Or perhaps you would simply prefer the Soviet system where an occasional show trial was run to establish the extent of the guilt and the taxpayer saves $ms by simply arresting the accused then shooting them without any expensive and inconvenient trial.

.

Dear Shadow Minister,

.

You wrote :

« The question should be why are the left whingers happy about crooks such as McDonald being freed after their jury convictions were overturned while cleaving to the sanctity of the jury conviction of Pell … »

If you’re thinking along the same lines as I am, Shadow Minister, I think you already know the answer to that one.

Ian Macdonald was a former member of the ALP and Labor minister for NSW. Isn’t that sufficient reason for the “left whingers” as you say ?

Had he been a member of the National Party, I doubt that they would have been so happy about his conviction being overturned. Though the “right whingers” might well have been pretty thrilled about it, don’t you think ?
.

You then surmised :

« For particular cases you want to abandon the presumption of innocence and assume that anyone that claims to be a victim is telling the gospel truth. »

What I wrote was :

« There should be NO PRESUMPTION OF EITHER INNOCENCE OR GUILT. Each case should be judged solely on its merits – and the sooner the better ! »

The current situation is that “only about 4.25% of sexual offenders are brought to answer for their crimes. The other 95.75% are deemed to be innocent and get off scot free”. If the inverse had been true (95.75% of sexual offenders were brought to answer for their crimes and 4.25% were deemed to be innocent and got off scot free), I would have written exactly the same thing :

« There should be NO PRESUMPTION OF EITHER INNOCENCE OR GUILT. Each case should be judged solely on its merits – and the sooner the better ! »

The scales of justice would be just as unbalanced in favour of the accuser as it is at present in favour of the accused. Either way, the dice are loaded. There is obviously something very wrong with the system. It should be brought back to the drawing board and redesigned.

That’s not justice !

.

SM & BP,
The rules of evidence have already been changed for child sexual offences. According to the 'Guardian' that Foxy posted about a week ago.

Because the prosecutors were frustrated in getting convictions the rule changes were to allow uncollaberated evidence (allegations) to stand as valid evidence for convictions. It is not known when the changes were made but the current Pell case is evidence that they exist. There may well be other cases where word on word evidence alone resulted in a conviction.

Further, it appears the Royal Commission is recommending more changes to make the job easier for prosecutors.

Hopefully His Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal Pell's [1] fellow inmates won't give him too hard a time.

Even if he does get off.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Eminence#Catholicism

.

Dear HenryL,

.

You wrote :

« The rules of evidence have already been changed for child sexual offences … Because the prosecutors were frustrated in getting convictions the rule changes were to allow uncollaborated evidence (allegations) to stand as valid evidence for convictions. It is not known when the changes were made but the current Pell case is evidence that they exist »
.

I am not aware of any change of rules or new law affecting the presumption of innocence, HenryL. What I do know is that there has been no lack of criticism over the past few years of a certain number of court decisions that are seen as making inroads into that fundamental principle of our common law.

An example that comes to my mind is the case of John Philip Aitchison, a former Anglican priest who was convicted in 2018 of sexual abuse of a young girl 30 years previously and sentenced to 9 years prison. The ACT Supreme Court that tried him was informed he had previously been convicted of offences against children in the United Kingdom, NSW, Victoria, and the ACT (but had spent only two years, in all, behind bars).

That sort of information during a trial is usually considered detrimental to the presumption of innocence. In the UK changes have been made affecting the principle of the presumption of innocence. Defendants' previous convictions may in certain circumstances be revealed to juries. I, personally, am unaware of any similar change having been made in Australia.

Perhaps, if Aitchison had appealed his conviction, his appeal may have been upheld. As it happens, he did not appeal it. I can only imagine his lawyers advised him not to. He had a long history of sexual abuse and the maximum penalty for the crime for which he had been convicted was 14 years. Instead of cancelling his conviction, he might have run the risk of worsening it.

You may be interested in the following note on the presumption of innocence from the Attorney-General’s office of the federal government :

http://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/HumanRights/Human-rights-scrutiny/PublicSectorGuidanceSheets/Pages/Presumptionofinnocence.aspx#6whcih

.

.

That said, HenryL, if – based on what would seem to be the logical outcome of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal on the 5th and 6th June, having not received the benefit of the presumption of innocence at his trial – contrary to all expectations, his appeal is rejected, that decision could well prove to be a milestone in the judicial history of Australia.

.