Justice

A word from the bench

By stan thorburn / 20 December 2006

A case before court involved a man charged with wounding his partner by assaulting her with a weapon . The woman in evidence said they were in bed watching television when an argument erupted and her partner hit her with the television remote. Jurors had quizzical expressions and the questioning lawyer was a bit nonplussed. “The television remote! How could you get such a wound from the TV remote ?” he asked. The woman’s face lit up. “Oh. We have a really old TV in the bedroom and so we keep a long broom handle on the floor to poke at the TV buttons when we want to change channel. It’s our remote,” she explained. A ripple of laughter, as those listening visualised the comic exercise of changing channel, was followed by a sinister realisation of what lay behind her story. Their bedroom, the place where the most tender moments were shared, the place where trust and commitment would have been promised and renewed, was a place of vulnerability.

It was blighted by the ugly presence of violence.

At the same time, the pithy and unique humour that enables couples to laugh at their situations (as this couple did when they used their “remote”), became twisted into something quite different. The object of their humour was also an object of fear and violence.

Domestic violence is the worst form of violence because it lurks in an area of life which ought to be the safest and most protected. What makes it so repugnant is that it dwells in the sanctuary of intimacy.

In the Youth Court we routinely see youngsters who are already committing acts of violence. This learned behaviour has been bestowed upon them in their domestic experience. The law can denounce such conduct on your behalf by passing sentences which reflect appropriate disapproval, but it cannot change such learned behaviour. That is up to you and me.

Violence is repugnant to God. The image of God that resides in every person is smeared with disrespect and disdain. It causes God to grieve and fills His heart with pain.

The state of Noah’s world before the flood was corrupt and full of violence (Gn 6:11). Perhaps the same or even more could be said of today’s world,. In our sophisticated world with its globalisation and instant universal communication, each day’s messages carry language and idioms of violence

We ought not to be surprised that there is violence in our homes. Violence is endemic between nations, and arguments for its justification are full of the rhetoric of hatred, terrorism and ethnic cleansing. Yet, particularly from the West, violence is incongruously promoted as necessary to achieve peace!

Violent behaviour will dissipate in our community when we properly honour the treasure that a relationship really is to us, when we acknowledge our friendships and special relationships as God’s gift to us to be fed by His love and respect. That is your challenge and mine, to show in our own lives the magnetic beauty of these principles and illuminate the path for those who need to see another way.

Stan Thorburn is a District Court Judge, a member of the Prison Fellowship board, and an ardent advocate of Restorative Justice, and is based in Auckland.

For more on alternative ways of engaging criminal justice, see

A Survey of 10 Years of New Zealand Court Cases on Restorative Justice, http://www.restorativejustice.org/editions/2006/feb06/stan
The Prison Fellowship http://www.pfnz.org.nz
Youth Justice http://www.justice.govt.nz/youth
Results of the 1998 call for submissions http://www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/1998/restorative_justice/
Restorative Justice Trust http://www.restorativejustice.org.nz/
New Frontiers http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wtie/
About the process http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_Justice
Learn about the new initiative Rethinking Crime and Punishment http://www.rethinking.org.nz/
And read the report on the Criminal Justice System by the Salvation Army Beyond the Holding Tank http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/SITE_Default/SITE_SPPU/SPPU_reports.asp