Recently saw a phenomenal performance from Mel Dodge in a play called Prima Facie. The message was confronting, disturbing, powerful and left the audience pondering.

The writer of the play, Susie Miller wrote:

“Years of practicing as a human rights and criminal defence lawyer did nothing to silence my feminist questioning of the legal system, because while I firmly believe that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is the bedrock of human rights, it always felt that its application in sexual assault cases served to undermine rather than uphold any real fairness”

She added the following facts. I am not sure how close they would align to Aotearoa / New Zealand sexual assault facts, would imagine they would be similar statistics.

1.7 million women who have been sexually assaulted, rarely receive justice from the criminal justice system. Instead women’s stories are filtered out of the system as they meet one hurdle after another
Nine out of every ten sexual assaults are not reported to police
Of the few that are reported, nine in ten end up with no conviction

In Ireland this play is compulsory viewing for high court judges before they sit on the bench, with plans to introduce it to more judges.

In New Zealand lawyers get two CPD points if they see this production of Prima Facie including a Q & A with the Director and her creative team.

A week after seeing this play I read in the news that in Italy, a judge decide that a male (school caretaker) who pulled a woman’s pants down and groped her, was not guilty because it was for less than 10 seconds. .

My work at the Human Rights Commission had me mediating some sexual harassment complaints. While the mediators are not advocates and supposed to be as impartial and neutral as possible, this play certainly raises the question of the concept of fairness, especially when thinking about the hurdles involved just getting to the stage of engaging in mediation process, let alone those who have been sexually assaulted going through the hurdles of a criminal justice process.