The Four Courts in Dublin are proud old buildings with an impressive history but they’re not exactly built for conducting justice in public.
This is especially evident when the trial in question is garnering a lot of publicity. Apart from the friends and family of the parties involved (frequently quite plentiful) you also get members of the press, members of the legal profession who are observing matters and of course, if proceedings are lurid enough, the general public.
The problem begins when these numbers swell beyond a certain point. With the layout of the main Central Criminal Courts things very quickly get crowded. The public seating fills up quickly as the two sides try to stay as far away from each other as possible.
Often the family of the deceased, or the complainant if there’s no body, sit on the benches normally reserved for barristers and gardai (and where the press normally sit). This means the press go and sit at the far end of the bench where the accused sits (which I’m reliably informed is not the dock).
One thing I’ve noticed increasingly is that the family of the accused have taken to sitting in the area that isn’t the dock. It’s something that’s been remarked on. Brian Kearney, for example, was able to receive his sister’s famous back rubs when things got too stressful during the trial.
By the end of the trial he had so many relatives sitting next to him that the journalists who had been sitting at the other end of the bench had to find somewhere else in the packed courtroom to sit.
It’s something you see in rape trials as well. These are held in camera, which basically means that members of the general public can’t just wander in for a gawp. It doesn’t exclude press though because justice still has to happen in public.
Now there’s nothing stopping the family of the accused sitting with them. After all until a jury decides otherwise, they are innocent in the eyes of the law. But it does seem a bit harsh when it’s a rape trial.
Even if every accused man is innocent until proven guilty, there’s always going to be a proportion of them that did the crime. That means that a woman who has been raped by some bastard whose wife and family are standing by him for whatever reason, will have to walk past all those accusing faces on her way to the witness box.
I know the accused’s family are going to be giving the complainant dirty looks where ever they sit but the place where the accused sits is right next to the witness box.
Surely making families sit in the public seats isn’t prejudicial towards the accused. A woman who has been raped already has to go through a cross examination, this kind of united front just makes her experience worse.
How are women supposed to be encouraged to come forward when they’ve been raped if their experience in Court is all down to what’s best for the accused?
I’m all for the presumption of innocence. It’s an important concept to keep. But sex cases are different and surely the victim deserves some consideration as well. There has to be some middle ground.
