Marital rape cannot be criminalized: Govt. - Page 5

Originally posted by: maha2us

Krystal_Watz, You say, 'Actually, its about what happens "generally", or in about 90% of the registered cases. If a woman cries "rape" and her claims sound believable, then she should be taken at face value unless proved otherwise. That's how things should work in view of the male-female, or rich-poor, or Upper Caste-Dalit, 'power dynamics' existing in the society. '

When you say, things should be taken at face value unless proved otherwise, that means, the person who she is accusing is to be taken as guilty till he proves otherwise or till he proves he is innocent. Whenever a person accuses another person, the burden of proof has to be always on the accuser. The founding principle of our judiciary is, anyone is innocent till he/she is proved to be guilty. Now if someone is to be considered to be guilty till he proves his innocence, then doesn't that mean innocent persons have to suffer and have to work hard to prove their innocence. If false cases are filed by women against men, aren't the men suffering here?

And based on what you say, poor people have the advantage of filing false cases against rich persons when the poor are envious of the rich. Again there will be lawyers who will goad the poor persons to file cases so that a rich person is stripped of money and the poor person as well as the lawyer get the cut out of it.

The laws have to be neutral and not favoring any section just because it is believed that section has advantages.

^Exactly. And I would like to add that aspersions ARE cast on their credibility all the time. Sometimes refusing to believe is a way of marginalizing or invalidating their experiences. It has little to do with notions of "neutrality" or "fairness" or whatever. And it really doesn't do anybody any good.

Originally posted by: souro

Your behaviour is most bewildering. You have taken it upon yourself to disagree with anything I might say, even if you have yourself sarcastically pointed to the very same thing. Just because I agreed to your point, now you take it upon yourself to disagree with me, if for no other reason, by making up something as vague as me being fastidious.

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Bold: Not possible in a society such as ours, where certain sections have to deal with prejudices in every step of their life, like women and Dalits. You DO need special safeguards for them. Can you imagine the inhuman pain a raped woman would go through when people cast aspersions on her credibility? The power relations are tilted here. So the common public HAS to believe the woman until judgment has been passed.

MOST rape complaints are real. SO we cannot have a 100% neutrality while judging in our minds, unless, like I said, circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to what the victim claims.

Qwerty, One can't say those who talk about neutrality are highly influenced by Western society or USA. But then what has been happening in USA? in that country, the performance of judiciary was reviewed many times and a lot of reforms were carried out time and again and one could say that judiciary in USA and the other western countries are efficient in providing justice. if at all, changes have to be made this is what we need in India. The reason people like to see women-favored laws is because the judicial system in this country is totally inefficient. One simple proof for this inefficiency is that we see more than sixty percent of the verdicts in lower courts are challenged in the higher court. In that case, how many persons will get justice even if we made laws biased towards females or laws biased towards poor persons? The magistrates and the judges are overloaded with many cases. Just because they are overloaded, it does not mean that they are not to study any case or make a judgement in a lazy way guessing that the crime could only be done on weaker section by the stronger person. in ancient India, kings or judges who administered justice, studied the case thoroughly and then gave the justice and we praise them even now. Today, are the magistrates or judges able to do that?

Again, how can one assume that only common man will do crime against woman? It can very well happen those who provide justice also can do crime against women. This includes police, lawyers, the judges and the ministers. Are these persons Gods or saints? Suppose a lawyer influences a woman with sweet words and shows that he helps her against her husband and she also in her immaturity accepts his help and does act based on what he says. the point to be noted here is the lawyer is not interested in helping her but is selfish to the core. He could do his best to harass her husband who could be innocent and make the husband pay a hefty amount to get out the case as the husband may find it difficult to fo through the cumbersome nature of the court. And the woman here could be naive to trust her lawyer. The lawyer after all the procedures blackmails her or rapes her. Where will she ger justice then? The case won't come out. Even if the case comes out the lawyer who knows law well could prove that she has lied. We also know police persons could also rape a woman who comes for justice.

^^The second paragraph of your post touches on a completely different issue. Here the crux of the debate is: Whether the law in India should provide safeguards to women or not. In my view, it should, considering the nature of prejudice an assaulted woman has to face in our society, and coupled with it the lengthy legal processes of the Indian judiciary.

However, I'd like to mention that I'm not in favour of legal provisions that can block free and fair investigation, e.g., Section 498A in its previous form.

Originally posted by: maha2us

Qwerty, The reason people like to see women-favored laws is because the judicial system in this country is totally inefficient. One simple proof for this

Qwerty: Here I'd want to point out one thing. As a society, the US and the West in general might be more evolved than Asian ones, but that does not always place them above making the occassional "don't dress like a s**t if ya don't wanna get raped" comment. The Canadian policeman a couple of years ago, and the circulated video of a college football team guys raping a sorority girl which had people expressing sorrow for the 'ruined future of the guys' rather than the victim. Just thought I'd say this.

Originally posted by: maha2us

Again, how can one assume that only common man will do crime against woman?

Originally posted by: krystal_watz

Qwerty: Here I'd want to point out one thing. As a society, the US and the West in general might be more evolved than Asian ones, but that does not always place them above making the occassional "don't dress like a s**t if ya don't wanna get raped" comment. The Canadian policeman a couple of years ago, and the circulated video of a college football team guys raping a sorority girl which had people expressing sorrow for the 'ruined future of the guys' rather than the victim. Just thought I'd say this.