Samira Taghavi: Defence lawyer says removing good character statements won't make much difference

A defence lawyer believes removing good character references for sexual offending is unlikely to make much difference at sentencing.

The National Party's latest policy would see judges no longer be allowed to consider positive testimonies about offenders.

Law Association Vice President Samira Taghavi told Mike Hosking that those references already carry limited weight in court.

She says judges don't put a lot of emphasis on good character references - unless they see one as completely relevant. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mean on the NATS so promising describe good character assessments
at the sentencing for sex offenders. Samira Toakavi is the
VP at the Law Association, and she is with a Samara,
good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Make is this stroke of a pen stuff? Is it
that easy to change or not?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Look, Mike, there's a bit of a misconception. You know.
The government is trying to tell the public that good
character reference makes a massive difference in terms of sentencing.
That's far from the truth. Judges already don't put a
lot of emphasis on a good character reference unless they
see it as completely relevant. But I think there's a
bigger issue here, Mike. And the bigger issue you know,

(00:36):
I grew up on Iran and defendants rights their conditional
upon a state approval, and my concern is as a
defense lawyer, once a society starts deciding some defendants the
fewer rights because the allegation is emotionally charged, we're going
down a very disastrous road. The policy is quite irrational.
I can see why National is doing it, but I

(01:00):
think what often gets forgotten in this discussion is being
charged with sexual offending can really happen to anyone. The
threshold these days in this country is so low for
laying these charges.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
But there's not about charges, it's about sentencing.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's about sentencing. I understand it. But I give you
a bit of an I give you an example. Okay,
a sixty five year old man who lived a life,
you know, working honestly, mentoring others, contributing to society without
Flemish otherwise, suddenly is face a historical allegation and get
convicted on the basis of words against words forty five
years ago, fifty years ago. Are you really telling me

(01:39):
that everything he has done during that forty five years
should not be taken into account. You can have a
two tire approach with sentencing on the basis of the
charges or that you've been convicted of. It just simply
doesn't make any sense. But I can see why they're
doing it because it sounds politically attractive, But in reality
it's not going to make a lot of difference. And

(02:01):
my suggestion is that they really need to focus on
things that are going to make a difference. Yeah, that's
that's what I think.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Good on you, Samira, Nice to talk to your Samira
tech Harbig for more from the mic, asking Breakfast.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
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