The Sexual Offences Model Court (SOMC) was officially opened on Monday January 21, 2019 in Antigua and Barbuda. The SOMC is an initiative of the Judicial Reform and Institutional Strengthening (JURIST) Project and the High Court of Justice in Antigua and Barbuda.The sexual offences model court is a set of specialised court procedures for the treatment of sexual offence cases. There is a dedicated courtroom and presiding judge assigned to the hearing of sexual offences using these specialised procedures. Sexual offences are different to other offences in relation to (1) the trauma caused, (2) the gender stereotypes which inform the behaviour of perpetrators and people who interact with the survivors, and (3) the large number of sexual offence complainants who fall into the vulnerable category. The unique nature of sexual offences therefore, requires the justice system to put in place specialized procedures for the handling of these cases and the survivors of sexual assaults.
The SOMC is intended to help remedy the deficiencies in the court’s current handling of sexual offence cases. These shortcomings were identified in a 2016 Baseline Study commissioned by the JURIST Project and undertaken by UN Women. The study identified the following deficiencies:
- Inordinate delays in completion of cases
- Lack of data collection to form the basis of monitoring and accountability for the courts’ performance and quality in responding to sexual offence cases;
- Insufficient coordination between the courts and other agencies that provide services to sexual assault complainants; and
- Sexual assault complainants refused to pursue cases due to fear of re-victimization and re-traumatization by the very process of seeking justice
The deficiencies in the court’s handling of sexual assault cases contribute to high attrition rates in the justice chain for sexual offences as well as to sexual offences having very low conviction rates in comparison to all other crimes.
