Law & Crime

Some time between 8.58am and 10.43am on June 29, 2016, after Borce and Karen Ristevski’s daughter, Sarah, left for work, Borce killed Karen, his wife of 27 years, in a manner known only to himself. He then moved her body from their home, placed it in the boot of her car, drove to Mount Macedon Regional Park, north-west of Melbourne, and concealed it before proceeding to lie about his actions to their family, the police and the public for years. By the time investigators found Karen’s body in the isolated bushland where it had been hidden by Ristevski, it was no longer possible to determine a cause of death.

‘Mistake of fact’ comes from section 24 of the Queensland criminal code. It says that where the defendant had an ‘honest and reasonable but mistaken belief’ in a state of things that made their actions legal, they must be acquitted. This defence has had blatantly unfair consequences for survivors of sex crimes.

The nation will soon head to the polls with public integrity a higher-profile issue than perhaps ever before in Australian history. The two major parties, however, seem to be the last people in the country to realise this. Trust took a dive not only because citizens suddenly felt unsure that their vote mattered. It was also the flip side – concern about the failure of due democratic process and the role of undue influences over the decision-making in Australia’s highest office. This is the message the major parties seem to have missed.

In essence, we now have a full-scale turf war between two crucial components of the democratic state – an independent judiciary and a free press, both seeking to defend their respective territory.

The cowardly, hate-filled attack has shaken both nations to their core, and exposed the lethal consequences of Australia’s political obsession with playing to people’s fears and prejudices. This is a dramatic shift, more potent than the demonising of the Tampa mercy ship with its cargo of 443 asylum seekers in 2001.

The toppling of a senior Catholic cardinal for child sexual assault no doubt deserves media attention. But we cannot let the news itself suck the oxygen from other critical issues facing survivors. Namely, the uphill battle they continue to face in seeking fair redress for the abuses perpetrated against them.

In 2001, Victoria’s own inquiry into public drunkenness recommended decriminalisation, citing that ‘for historic, cultural and instrumental reasons the impact of the criminalisation of public drunkenness has a disproportionate effect and impact upon Indigenous communities’. The committee pushed for the establishment of sobering-up centres across the state, including specific centres for Indigenous people, which would form part of a ‘holistic treatment service’.

Much has been said in recent weeks about the operation of suppression orders in high-profile cases. A common element in these discussions has been vigorous debate over whether the use of suppression orders impermissibly jeopardises the long-held principle of open courts and open justice. At its core, this issue involves striking the right balance between open justice including the public interest in court reportage, and an individual’s right to a fair trial.

The world’s Catholic bishops in a remarkably uniform pattern engaged in a psychological process called ‘special moral disengagement’ in which they laid aside their moral compasses, seeing the abuse as a sin and not a crime, and not prioritising the rights of the child over the priest perpetrator, who was recycled to yet another parish or another diocese or even overseas.

When the voting is done, and political careers are secured or lost, when the journalists put down their “pens” and head to their families or bed, and when the publishers are onto the next story, the resultant scars from this episode of moral panic will still be carved into our lives. And they will still be there, weakening the ties that bind us into a shared identity as Victorians.