Children's evidence in sexual offences : the law in Israel

Abstract

Children participate most frequently in the judicial process. Evidence is given by children in both civil and criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, this dissertation focuses on the special issues surrounding the evidence of children in criminal proceedings. mainly with regard to sexual offences. In these proceedings, children are often victims of crime, witnesses of events that have happened lo others or even defendants. Children often become intimidated or distressed by the process of giving evidence, that they are unable to give evidence satisfactorily or even worse than that - they are being psychologically harmed by this whole process. Thus, there is an important need to protect the rights of children. Even so, the criminal legal system should protect at the same time the rights of defendants. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child (1989) requires, inter alia, that children will be heard and protected in all legal processes and that the evidence of child witnesses should be taken in a way that promotes their physical and psychological recovery. In Israel, there has been, since 1955, a special legal arrangement designed to protect children from the perceived trauma of testifying in court. In the framework of this dissertation, I intend to review the Israeli system for obtaining and evaluating evidence given by children in sexual offences. I will also discuss suggestions and special measures meant to facilitate children's testimony. The countries which I will use for comparative law arc Australia and United Kingdom.