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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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http://www.anzlhsejournal.auckland.ac.nz/Abstracts_4_3.htm Australia & New Zealand Law & History
Society The
Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society was formed in 1993.It is
an interdisciplinary group of scholars who share an interest in the
connnections between law and history.The society grew out of the annual Law
in History Conferences, which have been running since 1982. Members of the
society include historians, lawyers, academics and others interested in the
area. Most of the members live in Australia or New Zealand, but their areas
of interest are not confined to the law in those places Australia and New Zealand Between the mid-15th
and mid-18th centuries, most educated Europeans believed in the existence of
clandestine devil-worshipping cults that engaged in infanticide and obscene
sexual orgies. In the 1980s, the same
tawdry recycled images resurfaced as Ritual Satanic Abuse. Nowadays, accused child
molesters, rather than accused witches, are stereotyped, demonised and
persecuted. Apart from that, little
has changed. Then as now, authorities regarded the loathed offence as crimen
exceptum, a crime unlike any other. In 1580, Jean Bodin wrote: "Proof of
such evil is so obscure and difficult that not one out of a million witches
would be accused or punished if regular legal procedures were followed."
According to
historians, while accusations against witches usually came from the common
people, it was the law changes that swept away the rights of suspects to a
fair trial, and the near universal acceptance by a normally sceptical
judiciary that the coerced evidence of witchcraft was reliable, that led to
the execution of around 50,000 innocent people. This paper examines
recent changes in New Zealand laws and procedures for the investigation and
prosecution of sexual offences that have transformed child molestation into crimen
exceptum, with particular reference to the Ellis case. |
