The Australian Law Reform Commission recently released its landmark 664-page report into sexual assault and the law, a long-overdue examination of a justice system that is failing victims at almost every level.
As an advisory group member for the inquiry, a survivor of sexual assault, and an advocate for legal reform, I welcomed the report. But no matter how comprehensive its findings are, they will mean little unless we confront one glaring and indefensible omission in Australia’s legal system: victims of sexual assault still have no independent legal representation.
I know firsthand what that failure looks like.
When I reported my assault, I entered a process designed to prioritise the rights of the accused at every turn, while treating me — the person at the centre of the case — as peripheral. For two years, my perpetrator had access to multiple senior barristers building his defence. He could purchase strategy, preparation, reassurance and time. I spent those same two years isolated and desperate for basic information about what was happening in my own case.
Despite the prosecution depending almost entirely on my testimony, I met the assigned prosecutor one working day before trial for less than an hour. Meanwhile, the defence was permitted to comb through decades of my personal and medical records. I walked into court alone, unprepared, and entirely vulnerable. And I am not the exception. I am the rule.
This is the brutal reality for victims of sexual violence in Australia: a system that claims to seek justice while systematically disempowering the very people it relies upon to prosecute crime. Victims are expected to endure invasive investigations, years of uncertainty, and traumatic cross-examination without anyone legally obligated to protect their rights, explain proceedings, or advocate for their interests. The result is predictable: victims disengage, cases collapse, perpetrators walk free – emboldened, if anything.
The dysfunction extends far beyond individual trauma. A criminal justice system that refuses to legally represent victims in sexual assault proceedings undermines its own capacity to deliver justice. Most victims never report to police. Of those who do, many are dismissed or discouraged before an investigation even begins. Of the cases investigated, few proceed to prosecution, and fewer still make it to trial. Victims are worn down by delay, confusion, intimidation and fear of retaliation. There is no one tasked with ensuring they understand the process, no one preparing them for the ordeal ahead, and no one protecting them from unlawful or deeply prejudicial lines of questioning when they finally reach the witness box.
Australia’s approach is increasingly out of step with comparable democracies. Countries including Ireland, Scotland and Sweden already provide independent legal representation for victims of sexual violence. These lawyers do not replace prosecutors, nor do they undermine the rights of the accused. Their role is narrower but critical: protecting victims’ privacy, challenging inappropriate applications of evidence, ensuring protective laws are enforced, and helping victims meaningfully participate in proceedings that profoundly affect their lives.
This is not about compromising a defendant’s right to a fair trial. It is about recognising that fairness cannot be measured solely by the protections afforded to the accused, while victims are left without even the courtesy of information about their own case.
As Professor Jonathan Doak has argued, a fair trial is not one “free from all possible detriment to the accused.” The rights of defendants and the rights of victims are not mutually exclusive. A justice system that entirely neglects one side of that equation is not balanced, it is distorted.
Independent legal representation is also essential to making many of the ALRC’s broader recommendations meaningful in practice. Changes to legislation only matter if someone can enforce them. Access to counselling, compensation schemes, special witness protections, appeals against decisions not to prosecute — these protections are hollow if victims are left to navigate the system alone.
The Albanese Government has taken an important first step by funding the expansion of specialist trauma-informed legal services nationally. But pilot programs are not enough. Australia must move beyond piecemeal reform and recognise independent legal representation for victims of sexual violence as a permanent and necessary feature of a functioning justice system, and the mechanism through which many of its adjacent protections are made real in practice
Victims are not merely witnesses to their own assaults. They are human beings deserving of dignity and a legitimate stake in the proceedings they have courageously agreed to cooperate with.
How many more survivors must endure the trauma of a system stacked against them before we act? How many more perpetrators will walk free because the people needed to hold them accountable were left unsupported, uninformed and alone?
We have an opportunity, right now, to build a justice system that works for everyone — not just those accused of crimes. Independent legal representation for victims of sexual assault is not radical. It is not excessive. It is the bare minimum.
The time for change is now.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au for online chat and video call services.