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Speaker 1: Now on jury trials, there is a call for us

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Speaker 1: to end jury trials for cases of sexual violence. One

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Speaker 1: of the voices leading this is the government's chief victim's advisor,

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Speaker 1: Ruth Money.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Ruth, good afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Why do you want to get rid of them?

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Speaker 2: Well? I think we can do better. I think we

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Speaker 2: can have a safer, more accurate kind of fact finding.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, process, Is that what the problem is? Fact finding?

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Speaker 1: Because isn't that that's not really the jury's job and

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Speaker 1: doesn't even really involve the jury, does it that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing happens before a trial?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think no, I think the jury and judge,

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Speaker 2: depending on whether it's judge alone or jury, but we'll

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Speaker 2: get to that. I am sure their job is to

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Speaker 2: consider the evidence, but when you come into that room

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Speaker 2: with bias, with new kind of not understanding nuances of

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Speaker 2: sexual assaults, victim blaming, you can end up with a

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Speaker 2: skew on the evidence, and therefore you don't find the facts.

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Speaker 2: There have been some really perverse outcomes with jury based

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Speaker 2: trials in this space, and I am asking the government

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Speaker 2: to look at an alternative that is safer for everybody.

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Speaker 1: Give me an example of a perverse outcome.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the problem with a lot of the

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Speaker 2: jury decisions is that you don't get a reason for

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Speaker 2: the decision. So what I am trying to undo, I

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Speaker 2: guess is the ability to understand was the decision based

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Speaker 2: in fact, and therefore an appeal would or wouldn't proceed

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Speaker 2: because at the moment, a jury will just say you're

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Speaker 2: guilty or you're not guilty. Now, if they're not guilty,

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Speaker 2: the victim doesn't understand why not there are no reasons,

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Speaker 2: whereas the Law Commission and other jurisdictions have said what

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Speaker 2: we could do and what we do do in other

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Speaker 2: jurisdictions is there are reasons given for a judge and

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Speaker 2: expert panel's decision which can then be appealed or not

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Speaker 2: whether they have actually considered the law and the evidence appropriately.

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Speaker 2: Whereas at the moment we don't have that, We have

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Speaker 2: no way to unpack what the reason for the decision was.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it's not obvious? I mean, I've sat

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Speaker 1: through so many of these kinds of court cases as

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Speaker 1: a reporter, and it has been often quite obvious why

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Speaker 1: the jury has reached the conclusion they have.

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Speaker 2: Yeap, sometimes it is really obvious and other times it's

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Speaker 2: absolutely not obvious at all, you know, and you end

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Speaker 2: up with people, you know. I've had survivors saying to me, look,

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Speaker 2: I was slammed around that courtroom like a tennis ball.

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Speaker 2: I was rapemisted, I was shamed, I was blamed, and

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Speaker 2: then we still get a guilty We still get a

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Speaker 2: guilty verdict. But what we are trying to do is

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Speaker 2: make this process safer for both victims and defendants so

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Speaker 2: that the system is more we just have more confidence

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Speaker 2: around interpersonal crimes within the justice system.

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Speaker 1: Do you accept the argument that a jury is necessary

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Speaker 1: because a jury is a reflection of the moral position

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Speaker 1: of society at the time.

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Speaker 2: I do accept that that is a accurate position of

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Speaker 2: a jury, but I also challenge that at the moment,

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Speaker 2: juries are not juries of your peers. And it is

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Speaker 2: becoming you know, I go into court and have spent

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Speaker 2: years into court every week and I watch what's happening

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Speaker 2: with our jury pool in New Zealand, and people do

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Speaker 2: whatever they can to get out of sitting on a jury,

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Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, we don't have a jury

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Speaker 2: of our peers, we don't have a true refer reflection

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Speaker 2: of society sitting on many of our juries now and

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Speaker 2: then when you combine that with people's biases when it

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Speaker 2: comes to victim blaming, when it comes to coercive control,

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Speaker 2: and the fact that you really do need to be

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Speaker 2: an expert a lot of the time to understand those nuances.

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Speaker 2: I fear that there are wrong decisions being made within

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Speaker 2: these interpersonal trials.

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Speaker 1: Ruth, thank you very much. I really appreciate time. Ruth Money,

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Speaker 1: Government Chief Victim's Advisor. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks they'd be from four pm weekdays,

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