Two month wait for barring orders

WOMEN suffering domestic violence are being forced to wait more than two months to get a court hearing to try and get an order barring an abusive partner from the home.

While an initial order to protect the woman in the home can be obtained from a court clerk relatively easily, a court date must be sought in order to obtain a safety or barring order.

Waiting times for court dates vary throughout the country. In some court districts the process is speedy, but chair of Women’s Aid Ursula Regan said the family law courts at Dolphin House in Dublin were in crisis and lengthy waiting lists meant women were questioning whether or not the process was worth it.

Court figures for 2008 show that 1,415 barring orders were granted at district and circuit court level. A total of 6,153 protection orders, barring orders, interim barring orders and safety orders were issued in 2008.

Director of the domestic violence support group Margaret Martin said women were often waiting 11 weeks or more for a barring order to be granted.

During this time women are essentially living in limbo, she said, and the threat of the order often led to an of escalation of mental abuse where partners could threaten to kill them or their children.

“In a sense it is a challenge to behaviour. The man will try and woo her back, or convince her to drop it; she has to keep her resolve for two-and-a-half months.”

She said it was not unusual that men would seriously threaten the woman during this period.

“It might be an effective deterrent for some men, but others threaten to set fire to the house, take the kids and drive off and crash and other such things.”

She said for a woman to have to wait 11 weeks and then not even know if they will get the order or not was very tough. Ms Martin also criticised the lack of consistency and uneven practices throughout the country.

“Two people could have similar cases but different judges means different outcomes. A decision in Kerry could be very different to a decision in Dublin,” she said.

“There is no training on domestic violence in the Irish judiciary and you could have a judge with not much experience with family law hearing cases. We need a system where women are protected until the hearing and beyond.”

Separately, new research has found that in three out of four rape trials, judges are allowing defence lawyers to cross-examine victims on their sexual history.

Victim support groups believe this type of questioning leads to prejudicing of cases and they are calling for the law to be changed to forbid sexual history being brought up in court.

The research by barrister and Senator Ivana Bacik examined 40 rape cases that went to trial over six years. Reasons accepted by judges for allowing such lines of questioning included suggestions a victim was promiscuous or sexually suggestive.

Speaking at the launch of the research for the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Director of Public Prosecutions James Hamilton admitted that legislation on when a victim’s sexual history should be allowed into court records was “limited”.