[Greens-Media] ‘Gay Panic’ Defence Must Go

[Franks, Office]

Greens Spokesperson for Gender and Sexuality Tammy Franks MLC has flagged that she will seek to remove the ‘gay panic’ defence* from South Australian law when State Parliament resumes.
The law of provocation provides a partial defence under common law, reducing murder to manslaughter.
SA, Queensland, NSW and the NT are the only Australians jurisdictions in that retain the archaic partial defence of male homosexual advance provocation which has been repealed in Tasmania, WA and Victoria.
Ms Franks said: “Our laws reflect community standards and beliefs and this is particularly true of our criminal code. It’s absurd and deeply offensive that our current law should still say it’s reasonable to beat a gay man to death if they make a sexual advance towards another male.
“It is difficult to fathom why the law should justify the killing of someone in response to a non-violent homosexual act.
“The law quite rightly does not regard the unwanted sexual advance of a heterosexual man to a woman, nor a woman making a sexual advance to either a man or a woman as providing justification of murder to be downgraded to manslaughter.
“Critics may say that this is just one of those common law legal defenses that are hardly ever applied.
That’s probably what they said in Queensland*before 2008 too and look what happened there.
“In fact, that’s probably what was said in every jurisdiction before these precedents are drawn upon and made relevant once more. Here in SA, we shouldn’t sit back and wait for a new criminal case to emerge and the community outrage that would rightly follow, before we take action. The time has well and truly come for us strike out this inappropriate, and quite frankly offensive, common law precedent.
Removing the ‘gay panic’ defence will send a clear message to the community that we simply don’t tolerate homophobic violence in this state,” Ms Franks concluded.

* The ‘gay panic defence’ is referred to as the ‘homosexual advancement test’ where a male defendant kills another man in response to a non-violent sexual advance.

**In Queensland in 2008 Mr Wayne Ruks was beaten to death by two men who claimed he made an unwanted sexual advance. One of the men claimed Mr Ruks grabbed his crotch. The men violently beat Mr Ruks and left him to die. The charge they faced was manslaughter not murder as both men were able to rely on the ‘gay panic defence. There is now a strong community campaign to change this law in Queensland.

Tammy Franks will be available on Parliament House Steps for comment at 10.45am.
Call  0457 549 938 for more information.