Victoria Pledges to Ban Suppression Orders for Convicted Rapists
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has committed to amending the state's Open Courts Act to ban suppression orders for convicted rapists if his government is re-elected in November. The pledge directly responds to growing concern over defendants using mental health grounds to keep their identities hidden through lengthy court proceedings.
Carroll, joined by Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny on August 11, said the government aims to close every loophole that accused people exploit to hide their identities in Victoria's courts. He argued that suppression orders were designed to protect victim-survivors, not convicted rapists (The Guardian).
A suppression order is a court directive that restricts what can be reported about a case, including the identity of the accused. The idea is to shield vulnerable parties, but critics say the mechanism has been stretched beyond its intended purpose.
The commitment follows two cases that crystallised public and legal concern. Ralph Carr, a prominent entertainment manager, was found guilty last month of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. His identity had been suppressed on mental health grounds for almost three years as his case moved through the courts, lifted only after his conviction. In December, Tom Silvagni, son of AFL footballer Stephen Silvagni, was convicted of rape; his proceedings had been suppressed for 18 months, also on mental health grounds, with his identity made public only following the conviction.
In both cases, the accused relied on psychiatric evidence arguing that publication of their names would create a risk of self-harm. Carr's lawyers obtained their order in 2023 under Section 18(1)(c) of the Open Courts Act, which restricts reporting (ABC News).
The legal architecture dates to 2013. Those laws allow suppression orders on safety grounds, but alleged offenders have only recently begun arguing that suppression is necessary to prevent them from harming themselves. Robert Clark, the former Coalition attorney general who introduced the legislation, has said the safety-grounds provision was designed to protect people from threats of violence or comparable safety risks, not claims of psychological distress (The Guardian).
A roundtable at the University of Melbourne on August 11 brought together lawyers, journalists, and academics to discuss the need for an overhaul of the Open Courts Act, prompted in part by the Silvagni and Carr cases. A separate review currently underway will guide further changes, examining the use of interim suppression orders, the length of orders, and the grounds on which they can be made, including mental health reasons. The Conversation has previously proposed a suite of reforms including limits on orders granted on mental health grounds, time limits on orders, restrictions on pseudonyms and concealment, and publishing legal reasoning (The Conversation). The state government had already been seeking advice on suppression order laws following a cross-outlet media complaint over a tactic being used to shield defendants (AAP).
The political competition is bipartisan, at least in rhetoric. Shadow Attorney-General James Newbury said the Coalition was going to stop the misuse of suppression orders, full stop. On August 12, the Victorian government introduced a wide-ranging bill to parliament that scraps the use of so-called good character references at sentencing, signalling a broader legislative push on court transparency (The Guardian).
The broader context here matters for understanding why this issue has gathered momentum now. The Open Courts Act's safety provision was crafted in a different era of media and legal practice. The emergence of self-harm-based psychiatric evidence as a basis for suppression appears to be a relatively recent litigation strategy, not one the original framers anticipated or intended. The gap between what the law was designed to do and how it is being used is what the current review and political commitments are attempting to close.
There are genuine tensions at stake. Suppression orders exist in part to protect the integrity of proceedings and the welfare of those involved, including complainants. Banning them outright for convicted rapists raises the question of what happens during the period between charge and verdict, when an accused has not been convicted but identity publication could prejudice a jury or compromise a fair trial. The government's commitment applies to convicted individuals, but the review's examination of interim orders and the grounds for making them suggests the scope of reform could extend further.
The mental health ground presents its own difficulty. Psychiatric evidence of suicide risk is not trivial, and courts have an obligation to take such risks seriously. The challenge for legislators is distinguishing between a genuine, acute safety risk and what Clark and others characterise as the strategic use of psychological distress claims to delay public accountability. How any amended law draws that line, or whether it removes the mental health ground entirely, will determine whether the reform withstands the practical and ethical tests it will inevitably face.
What is clear is that Victoria's framework for court suppression is under sustained scrutiny from multiple directions: political, academic, journalistic, and legal. Whether the November election produces a government prepared to legislate the changes, and in what form, will shape the balance between open justice and defendant welfare in one of Australia's largest court systems for years to come.
