Justice Minister Annette King has issued a discussion document, Improvements to Sexual Violence Legislation in New Zealand, aimed at seeking public views on law changes to improve the criminal justice response to sexual offending.

 Ms King says the Government wants to consider community views as part of its ongoing focus on reducing sexual violence.

 “The issues are complex and many will have strongly held views on them. We need to have this discussion in an open way.”

 The discussion paper seeks public views on three proposed changes to the Crimes Act and the Evidence Act:

 ·        Whether the law of consent should be changed by adding a definition of what consent is.

·        Whether the court should be required to take into account any steps the defendant took to discover whether the complainant was consenting when a defence of reasonable belief in consent is raised.

·        Whether the law that protects complainants from being questioned about their sexual history should be extended to questions about their sexual history with the defendant.

The paper also seeks views on alternative approaches to addressing sexual violence such as restorative justice and specialist prosecution units.

 The discussion document is available on the Ministry of Justice website at http://www.justice.govt.nz/discussion/sexual-violence-legislation.

Submissions should be sent by 30 September 2008 to: svsubmission@justice.govt.nz

 Submissions can also be sent to: Sexual Violence Legislative Submissions, Ministry of Justice, PO Box 180, Wellington.

Contact: John Harvey (04) 471 9305; John Saunders (04) 470 6851.