Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.06.2005, Blaðsíða 19

19
“food for dummies”
get a free copy of
mexicans
have nachos,
Icelanders have
bitafiskur
(pieces of dried fish)
at the next 10-11 convenience store
fun facts about icelandic food
Lawmakers and counselors
aren’t the only ones frustrated with
the courts - lawyers as well often
find themselves against the wall. As
prosecutor Herdís Hallmarsdóttir
told the Grapevine last year, “In my
experience, of all the rapes which are
even reported to the police, I’d say
only about 25% actually make it into
court. Of those, only half end in a
conviction.”
While it’s certainly true that there
remains a large discrepancy between
what sentences the law allows
for rape and what sentences are
actually handed down by the courts,
the law itself is not without room
for improvement. Only last year,
the Supreme Court tried a man
charged with multiple counts of
sexually assaulting a girl from the
time she was five years old until
she was twelve, the details of these
assaults recounted in frank detail
by the victim herself, but the case
was thrown out of court: the statute
of limitations had run out for the
defendant’s crimes, and he was
acquitted.
Currently, the statute is
anywhere from five to fifteen years,
depending on the seriousness of the
offence, beginning when the victim
turns 14. This often means that a
sexual predator who would normally
be found guilty for numerous abuses
is acquitted, even if the accused has
confessed.
As Ágústsson also pointed
out to the Grapevine, statutes of
limitation don’t exist for comparable
or even lesser crimes. “There are no
statute of limitations for a number
of other crimes, such as murder,
kidnapping, terrorism, crimes
against the state, and some types of
robbery,” Ágústsson told us. “Before
1983, many laws had no statutes of
limitations at all.”
Nor does the statute protect the
majority of victims of sexual assault.
“Close to 40% of those who seek
help at Stígamót are over the age of
30, and 25% are older than 40,” said
Ágústsson. “Clearly the law isn’t
protecting a large number of the
victims.”
Ágústsson has made it his personal
crusade to eliminate the statute of
limitations on the sexual assault of
a child, and introduced a bill last
month that would put an end to it.
Ágústsson’s bill was backed by the
signatures of some 15,000 Icelanders
and received the endorsement of
Stígamót, the sexual awareness group
Blátt Áfram, and youth groups from
every party in the country, which,
as Ágústsson understates, “is very
unique.”
“In my mind, this is a matter
of common sense to protect the
children and bring sexual predators
to justice,” he said.
The protection of children
would seem to be a non-partisan
issue. And yet when the bill was
introduced to the Parliamentary
General Committee, committee
chairman and Independence Party
MP Bjarni Benediktsson rejected
it. The primary reason he gave was
that the bill made no distinction
between “serious” sexual assault of
a child and a “minor” one, but that
he would be willing to present the
bill to the Minister of Justice for
review, a reasoning that Ágústsson
dismissed as “just another way to put
this matter to sleep,” adding, “In my
mind all these crimes are serious and
should not have different rules for
statutes of limitations.”
Ágústsson even went so far as
to say that the bill’s rejection was
politically motivated. “I think the bill
was rejected because a member of
the opposition introduced it,” he told
the Grapevine. “It’s a tradition in
Iceland that bills introduced by the
opposition don’t leave committee.
It’s a sad culture ruling over this idea
that instead of looking at the bill and
asking, ‘Does the bill make sense?,’
they reject it outright because it
came from the opposition.”
At the time of this writing, MP
Benediktsson was not available for
comment regarding why the bill,
backed by 15,000 signatures, had not
been sent to the parliamentary floor.
Both Ágústsson and Þórarinsdóttir
want to see the law regarding
sexual assault strengthened further.
Ágústsson cited Norway as an
example, wherein there is only one
law for sexual assault, and the courts
are left to decide the severity of the
offence and sentence accordingly, in
contrast with the varying sentences
allowed in Icelandic law for different
kinds of sexual assault. Þórarinsdóttir
had one simple request.
“I’d like to see more convictions,”
she told us. “The more convictions
there are, the more people will begin
to take this seriously and realize that
these people aren’t lying.”
But even if the statute of
limitations were lifted and the laws
on sexual assault were strengthened,
could the courts be counted on
to follow through? Þórarinsdóttir
remains optimistic, believing that
change will come about slowly but
surely.
“Of course change takes time,
but we’re educating new lawyers
now who will become judges one
day,” she told the Grapevine. “As
we say, we who work here are one
generation ahead of the system.”
Ágústsson, however, sees only
one sure way to create lasting
change: replace the government.
“We have to have another
government that makes these
matters a priority,” he said. “This
government has had the opportunity
for the past ten years to make this
very important step in this matter
and hasn’t.”
The next parliamentary elections
are in 2007, and it might take at
least another generation for new
judges willing to hand down stricter
sentences to replace those currently
presiding. In the meantime, most
members of parliament will continue
to fight for tougher laws, and
organizations such as Stígamót and
Blátt Áfram will continue to counsel
victims and educate the public at
large - as well as Iceland’s future
judges. It also should be noted that
anyone can contact the judges in his/
her district (www.heradsdomur.is)
as well as the judges of the Supreme
Court itself and encourage them to
hand down harsher sentences for
sexual assault. This may prove to
be the most readily available option
for those who don’t want to wait a
generation before the courts sentence
rapists and paedophiles to the
furthest extent of the law.
For further information, visit
Stígamót’s website: www.stigamot.is
Paul F Nikolov Reports on Sexual Assault Laws
By Paul F Nikolov
G
úndi