Women have had a big effect on the law and legal career. For International Women’s Day, here are selected quotations from many of the maximum famous women to have encouraged this lifestyle area. Included are phrases from U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan; activist Amal Clooney; Sen. Kamala Harris; former first ladies Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt; former Rep. Jeannette Rankin; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and previous prosecutor Marcia Clark.
A jury’s query approximately whether a Hong Kong nanny telling her accused rapist “I don’t want” intended “no” below Queensland’s sexual consent laws shows the need for reform, girls’ advocates say.
Key factors:
Key factors:VQueensland’s puzzling consent laws are depriving vulnerable girls the Women’s Legal Service argues
The State Opposition says it’ll aid a parliamentary inquiry into consent laws
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath is consulting with felony stakeholders
The Women’s Legal Service Queensland (WLSQ) stated existing legal guidelines were “not in line” with modern-day attitudes and had been “confusing” jurors and failing inclined complainants.
In a Brisbane rape trial in early 2018, the court docket heard a person became accused of sexually assaulting and raping a female from Hong Kong in a parked automobile in January 2016, in addition to asking her to masturbate him. The girl, who spoke “terrible English,” well-known underneath pass-examination she had, first of all, kissed him returned, however, changed into emphatic that she time and again pleaded “I do not want” and cried whilst he allegedly raped her. The accused best denied the masturbation allegation and claimed they’d consensual intercourse — raising the century-old “mistake of truth” defense.
During its deliberations, the jury despatched a word to the decision asking: “Does ‘I do not want identical ‘no’ via regulation?”
The lady chooses to reply: “Not always.” The choice then told the jury: “I cannot let you know that positive words equal loss of consent, because it all depends on the occasions. That is a real rely on you”. “[With mistaken belief …] the massive element is there is no burden on him to prove that he changed into acting below a sincere and affordable floor. It is for the prosecution to … show he became now not,” she stated.
The jury discovered him guilty of one rely on rape, acquitted him of three counts of sexual assault, and changed into unable to decide on a second charge of rape. Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath filed an enchantment over the “glaringly inadequate” 4-12 months sentence exceeded to the person, suspended after 14 months. Court of Appeal Justices Philip McMurdo and James Henry went the alternative manner, quashing the rape conviction overdue final year in a majority choice, after ruling the jury’s guilty verdict changed into inconsistent with its different findings.
But the dissenting choose, Justice Anthe Philippides, stated the jury’s verdicts had been able to “reconciled” and pondered a “careful attention” to the issues of consent and honest and reasonable but unsuitable perception. WLSQ solicitor Julie Sarkozy stated they’d raised the case with the Queensland Government, pronouncing it illustrated “how complicated” current laws are for jurors.
“The reality the jury virtually had to ask the judge once more for reasons about the definition of these legal ideas just well-known shows how difficult it is for a jury to apprehend the one’s concepts and to attain an end that makes the experience,” she said.
She stated there had been a chasm among “the manner human beings behave and the felony definition of loss of consent” and that this put susceptible girls at a downside. Ms. Sarkozi said other jurisdictions had already passed through reform and that WLSQ had been pushing for a pressing evaluation of the legal guidelines in Queensland since the ultimate yr.
