Victoria to ban suppression orders for convicted rapists in proposed legal overhaul

The use of suppression orders by convicted rapists will be banned in Victoria, the premier, Ben Carroll, has announced, with his government committed to “closing every loophole” accused people “abuse and exploit” to hide their identities in the state’s courts.

Carroll and the state’s attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, made the commitment to amend the state’s Open Courts Act to limit the use of suppression orders if re-elected in November.

“First and foremost, we are going to stop suppression orders being used to protect convicted rapists. Suppression orders were designed to protect victim-survivors, not convicted rapists,” Carroll told reporters.

Kilkenny said further changes to the act would be guided by a review now under way. The review is examining the use of interim suppression orders, the length of suppression orders and the grounds on which suppression orders can be made, including mental health reasons.

“That review is under way right now, and as we’ve announced today a re-elected Carroll Labor government will ensure that we make amendments to our Open Courts Act so that we are closing every loophole used by high-profile accused and convicted persons [regarding] the use of suppression orders,” she said.

“Justice must be open and there must be a balance with the right to a fair trial by the accused. But we have seen most recently that we need to look at that,” she said.

The government’s commitment comes after the identities of perpetrators in several prominent rape cases have successfully argued for suppression of their identities for significant periods.

Ralph Carr, a prominent entertainment manager, was last month found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. But his identity was suppressed on mental health grounds for almost three years as his case proceeded through the courts. Only after he was convicted was it lifted.

The identity of Tom Silvagni, the son of AFL footballer Stephen Silvagni, was only made public after his conviction of rape in December. His proceedings were suppressed for 18 months, also on mental health grounds.

In both cases, the accused men relied upon evidence from a psychiatrist that the order was necessary to protect their safety as they could be at risk of self-harm should they be identified in the media.

The 2013 laws allow orders to be granted on safety grounds, but alleged offenders have only recently started arguing that suppression was necessary to prevent them from harming themselves.

Robert Clark, the former Coalition attorney general who introduced the laws, has said the provision was designed to protect people from threats of violence or similar safety issues, “not about claims of psychological distress”.

The need for an overhaul of the Open Courts Act was discussed at a roundtable at the University of Melbourne on Monday that included lawyers, journalists and academics and had been in part prompted by the Silvagni and Carr cases.

The shadow attorney general, James Newbury, attended the event. On Tuesday, he said the Coalition was “going to stop the misuse of suppression orders, full stop”.

“Labor has dragged their feet and has reconfirmed today they just want to kick the can down the road again. Victoria is the suppression order capital of Australia and if we are elected, it will be fixed,” he told Guardian Australia.

The Melbourne Press Club (MPC), which also attended the event, said the announcements were a step in the right direction, but did not go far enough.

“The government and opposition should commit before the election to a much broader review into the law governing cases in Victoria, including the test that must be met before a suppression order is granted,” the MPC president, Michael Bachelard, said.

Associate Prof Jason Bosland, a University of Melbourne academic and lawyer who organised the event, said that current laws could undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.

“Suppression orders that are made in circumstances that do not meet community expectations have a corrosive effect on such confidence and ultimately undermine the rule of law.”

On Tuesday, the government also introduced a wide-ranging bill to parliament that scraps the use of so-called “good character” references at sentencing, after New South Wales made a similar commitment in February.

The bill criminalises coercive control as a stand-alone offence, strengthens family violence intervention orders and amends the state’s Equal Opportunity Act to make “subjection to family violence” a protected attribute. The latter will make it unlawful to discriminate against someone because they are experiencing or have experienced family violence.

Both Carroll and Kilkenny framed the election as a choice between a Labor government that “always stand with victim-survivors” and a Liberal government aligned with One Nation, repeating Pauline Hanson’s widely condemned comments that family violence is a “two-way street”.

“[A] government led by Jess Wilson and One Nation puts at risk all of the reforms that we have made and that we are introducing today to put victim-survivors at the centre, to better protect them, to better support them, and to hold perpetrators to account,” Kilkenny said.