SIGNIFICANT changes to the way the legal system handles rape and other crimes against women have been promised by the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen.
Accepting a report recommending reforms of the legal and judicial process yesterday, the Minister said it should be possible to implement some of its 84 recommendations immediately.
The Minister said she was looking favourably at "giving victims of rape their own legal teams in court" and keeping victims of rape and other crimes of violence informed about each stage of the legal process.
At present rape victims normally appear only as witnesses and are not separately represented.
The Minister said many of the report's recommendations were not new, and some work had been done towards implementing some of them. She added that not all of them referred to her Department and she could not oblige other institutions to act on them. However, the report would be fully examined, and where practicable recommendations would he implemented immediately.
The report, Victims of Sexual and Other Crimes of Violence Against Women and Children, says that men's violence against women and children is at crisis levels".
It was produced by a working group set up by the National Women's Council of Ireland in 1995. The group was chaired by Ms Ailbhe Smyth of the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre at University College Dublin, and included members of the National Women's Council of Ireland, the Rape Crisis Centre, Women's Aid, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Irish Countrywomen's Association. Its work was funded by the Department of Justice.
The authors of the report say they regretted that the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Declan Costello, and the President of the Circuit Court, Judge Frank Spain, would not meet the group.
The judges felt this could affect the independence of the judiciary, the report says. However, the group believes such dialogue would "heighten public confidence in the judicial system" rather than lessen it.
The report says that institutions such as the media, police and government agencies focus on "stranger danger" while there is too little focus on the danger to women in the home. Only 10-15 per cent of women report domestic assault to the police, it says. Rape is "profoundly underreported", and while about half those reported lead to criminal proceedings, there is a "tiny" conviction rate.
The group says there is a "serious lack of support services for women subjected to male violence" and that professional groups have underestimated the crime and failed to respond properly to it.
The report notes that in the Garda in 1994 7.5 per cent of the force at garda rank were women but there were no women in the 50 most senior jobs (from chief superintendent to commissioner) and only one of 157 superintendents was female.
The Minister said yesterday she had no plans for a "positive discrimination" code to increase the number of women in the force.
Similarly women are extremely poorly represented" in the judiciary, the report says, accounting for one of eight Supreme Court judges and three of 20 High Court judges.
It recommends a "committed and concerted effort by the Government towards achieving gender balance in the judiciary".
The report criticises the Irish media for the way crimes of sexual violence are reported. It says that while tabloid newspapers sensationalise such crimes most often, quality papers also do so from time to time.
Headlines exhibit "blatantly sexist stereotyping" with "women being routinely described in terms of their appearance, age and/or social roles". The report recommends that a code of practice for the reporting of such crimes be drawn up and monitored by the National Union of Journalists.