Law Council of Australia

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Issues Paper: Justice responses to sexual violence

The purpose of this submission is to provide a high-level statement of the Law Council’s position on several of the key themes canvassed in the Australian Law Reform Commissions (ALRC’s) Issues Paper of April 2024.1 Given that the ALRC intends to develop reform proposals after considering submissions received in response to this Issues Paper, we have not made recommendations in this submission. We intend our submission to be a precursor to detailed engagement on specific proposals for reform. We note that the Issues Paper focuses primarily on procedural issues, but future reform proposals will also cover issues relating to substantive law, including laws about consent.

The Law Council acknowledges that complainants and victim-survivors of sexual violence have all too often been re-traumatised through their engagement with the criminal justice process. The Law Council endorses the objective identified in the Issues Paper of developing recommendations that seek to ensure that people who have experienced sexual violence and their families are properly supported when they seek help. In this submission, we have affirmed the importance of adopting an approach that centres on the experience of complainants and victim-survivors.2

Read the full submission below.

1 Australian Law Reform Commission, Issues Paper: Justice Responses to Sexual Violence, Issues Paper 49 (April 2024).
2 While we acknowledge different perspectives, the Law Council has adopted the conjunctive terms ‘complainants and victim-survivors’ in this submission. In the context of the criminal justice system, the term ‘complainant’ refers to a person who has made a report to the police about their experience of sexual assault. As the Issues Paper explains, the term ‘complainant’ recognises ‘…that the person has made a complaint of sexual violence, but the allegation has not yet been tried and proved’: Issues Paper, 6 [30]. The term ‘victim-survivor’ includes persons who have experienced sexual violence. It is intended to acknowledge the lived experience of victim-survivors as well as their agency and resilience in not being defined by that experience. We recognise that not all victim-survivors are complainants because they decide to not participate in the criminal justice system. We also recognise that people who experience sexual violence may or may not identify with the term ‘victim’ and or ‘survivor’. By adopting the terms ‘complainants and victim-survivors’ we do not intend to presume how a person who has experiences of sexual violence identifies. By including the term ‘complainant’, we are intending to be consistent with terms used in court and do not intend to cause any distress for anyone who has experienced sexual violence (or their families) who may be reading this submission.

Last Updated on 15/08/2024

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