March 8, 2006, wasn’t turning out to be a day of celebration for one Maltese woman whom we will call Jane. While other women were receiving flowers for Women’s Day or perhaps being treated by their families, Jane was being beaten up by her husband.

At the time, she was in the course of separation proceedings from her husband. He claimed that he had not seen their children for several months. We don’t know whether this was really the case, but the newspaper report goes on to describe what action Jane’s husband took.

He started to beat her up. Evidence showed that she fainted from the blows she received to her head but her husband continued to beat her unabated. Some people intervened to calm the situation but he continued throwing blows at her.

It was the police who arrived shortly afterwards who brought the situation under control. In her testimony, Jane said she had suffered several bruises and bites on her body. After the attack, her mouth was still painful for some time. A dentist confirmed that her upper front teeth had been broken and her lower lip split.

On another occasion, Jane – who had left home because of her husband’s acts of aggression – claimed that her husband waylaid her, pulled her pouch from around her waist, threw it into the van and started to punch and kick her. She tried to escape but he ran after her and when he caught up with her, he dragged her along the road by her hair. A witness saw Jane being pushed and slapped. Again, the police had to arrive on the scene to control the situation.

Jane’s husband gave a somewhat different version of events. He claimed that the incident was linked to that of access to his children and that he was not responsible for any of her injuries.

Maybe Jane had scratched herself when she had fallen down, he mused. The magistrate presiding over the court of first instance was having none of that. He gave a judgment which was commensurate with the crime – that of two years’ imprisonment.

That eminently sensible judgment was overturned on appeal. The Appeals’ Court freed Jane’s husband from the charge that he drove his van at an excessive speed.

However it found him guilty of the other charges brought against him – the gravest of which was that of inflicting grievous injuries on his wife. Strangely enough, the court found that smashing someone’s teeth and splitting her lip did not warrant a single day behind bars. Nor did it warrant the payment of a single cent by way of criminal fines.

Why go through the tortuous court procedure, with the fear of reprisal if the perpetrator is not suitably punished?

After reviewing the sentence, the Appeals’ Court said that a more suitable sentence for the man would be that of two-year prison term suspended for three and suspending his driving licence for a year from the date of this sentence, along with a protection order for his wife for three years. The icing on the cake was the court’s recommendation that Jane’s husband not be fired from his post within the AFM as a result of the “incident”.

Because you know – people with anger management issues should really continue to work for the armed forces – especially if they continue to bash the mother of their children after they’ve beaten her senseless and she’s lying unconscious on the ground.

And because this kind of judgment is going to strike fear in the heart of violent thugs everywhere and prove to be a great deterrent to potential attacks. Beat someone to senseless pulp and prance out of court eight years later, with a slap on the wrist (because that’s what a suspended sentence amounts to) and a recommendation. At least there was no recommendation for a promotion – we should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.

Jane’s husband got off more lightly than someone who double-parked. I bet Jane and others in her situation will be tripping over themselves to lodge a police report the next time someone decides to land them a Mike Tyson smasher causing them to spit out their own teeth in a bloody mess. Because that’s the message judgments like this give out to victims of violence – that it’s not worth it.

You know, there are so many worthy initiatives held by NGOs, government agencies and other entities to try to encourage victims of violence to speak up, to report attacks and not to put up with abuse. Only a couple of weeks ago, members of NGOs took part in a display of song and dance as part of the One Billion Rising For Justice international campaign. The campaign is a global call to women and survivors of violence to gather safely together outside places where they are entitled to justice or in places where they deserve to feel safe but too often do not.

It’s a cruel irony that they gathered close to the law courts, from where Jane’s husband skipped out with a job recommendation in hand. It’s all very well urging victims of violence to stand up for themselves, to report crime and to proceed through the proper channels but victims are having serious doubts as to whether the law courts are the ultimate bastion of justice.

Why go through the tortuous court procedure, with the fear of reprisal if the perpetrator is not suitably punished? Justice is often depicted as being blindfolded to signify impartiality.

Sometimes it seems that she’s not blindfolded, but winking and laughing at some cruel joke.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt