Legal aid often unavailable in domestic violence cases, human rights activist says

Human rights lawyer and activist Lara Dimitrijevic told the conference that legal aid wasn’t always available to women in cases of domestic violence, despite the requirement being laid out in the Istanbul Convention.

“We need to adopt a clear frame work in regards to women accessing justice, we need more training, we need legal aid to be accessible and there needs to be more of it and lastly we need to make the courts a safer place for women to seek justice,” she said.

Dimitrijevic said the recent increase in penalties for those committing domestic violence was a step in the right direction, but added that there will still too many barriers in this regard.

Dimitrijevic was speaking at a conference organised by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality where expressed her concern at the current legal system and the way she said victims of domestic abuse were treated in court.  

The conference focused on assessing Malta’s standing in regards to the Council of Europe’s objectives emanating from the Gender Equality Strategy, which was adopted in March this year.

Dimitrijevic detailed how women are forced to share the same space as their aggressor as they wait outside the court room. This, she said, negatively impacted the victim, while also leaving a mark on the court case.     

The human rights lawyer detailed cases within the court room where women were not granted the respect by the courts that they were entitled to, including being asked by judges whether they wanted to drop their case.

“Why, so they can go home and play happy families even though their being abused?” Dimitrijevic asked.  

Another issue often faced by victims of domestic violence was defence lawyers behaving inappropriately. She recounted she had on occasion been accused of staging evidence by using make up to give the impression that a woman had sustained injuries during an attack.

Dimitrijevic mentioned a case were the defense lawyer continually brought up in a rape case that the victim was drunk, to the point were the court appointed a sobriety test, to test the victim’s alcohol levels at the time of the rape in question. Even simply getting a case to the courts is a battle, Dimitrijevic said.

Government’s soft measures are not working – Carmen Sammut

University of Malta pro-rector Carmen Sammut stressed that Malta needs to work towards harder to achieve gender balance in parliament by 2030. 

Sammut said the soft measures implemented by the political parties did not increase female participation in the national Parliament.

As it stands, she said, female representation in parliament has not changed in 70 years. In the local parliament, it has remained stuck between 10 and 13% since the 1950s.

A lack of progress has caused Malta to slip down the Inter-Parliamentary Union rankings in terms of women in politics as other countries move forward. Malta is currently ranked 150 out of 193 nations in 2018.

Sammut said the government has promised to commit to introducing measures that will help achieve gender-balance in parliament, including the appointment of a technical committee to prepare a consultation document. She said a green paper will be published towards the end of the year and discussed by parliament in 2019.

She said the report will include incentives to political parties to increase the participation of women in the recruitment and campaign stages, gender auditing as a new remit of the Electoral Commission, a gender-balanced way of presenting the ballot list and a set of legal amendments that will address gender imbalance within the parliament.

Sammut concluded “if we do not seize the day” change will never happen, or happen at a slower rate then is necessary for the development of not only for women put to also archive a full fledged democracy.