Seanad debates
Wednesday, 12 November 2003
Courts and Court Officers (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second and Subsequent Stages.
We must resist another feature of the present age, namely, a desire to always see things in terms of anger and disappointment. When we deal with victims, our system should be more supportive. I accept Senator Tuffy's point in that regard. There is a sense in which victims are merely seen as witnesses in an adversarial system. We must be careful about that. However, we must remember the other side of that coin, namely, that justice is public justice. It is not the right of a victim to select the punishment for the offender. Whereas the victim is entitled under our law to be heard on the issue, people want someone who listens to both sides and then selects a punishment. The dissatisfaction of any victim with a sentence is not the issue. If we had a system where every victim had to be satisfied with every sentence, we would surrender the sentencing process to the relatives of the victim in every crime. That is not what is needed in a fair system. We need an impartial arbiter to decide the sentence, having listened to the victim.
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