Female judges to hear rape cases as India admits failures of legal system

Under a proposed new law in India, rape cases will only be allowed to be heard by a female judge. The radical measure is the latest in a recent series of initiatives to improve the country's poor record in prosecuting rapes.

Every 29 minutes in India a woman is raped. In Delhi, it is far the most common form of violent crime. Muggings and street crime are far rarer than in Western cities, and the streets are safe for a man to walk even late at night. For a woman it is a different story.

At the end of last year, there were 58,310 rape cases still waiting to go to trial. Even when they get there, rape cases have been among the most glaring failures of the Indian legal system.

In one case a social worker, Bhanwari Devi, 41, was gang-raped in front of her husband by their neighbours as "punishment" after she tried to prevent a child marriage: a local family was trying to get their one-year-old daughter married.

When the case came to court, the five accused were acquitted, despite the evidence, on the grounds that they were members of the Hindu upper castes, and Ms Devi was a Dalit (formerly called Untouchable). "Upper caste men, including a Brahmin, would not rape a woman of a lower caste," the court said in its judgment.

In another case, a man accused of raping a seven-year-old girl was acquitted because there was no injury to his penis - there had been eyewitnesses to the rape, at a bus stop, and the girl had a ruptured hymen. The Indian government is hoping the law will prevent rape victims from being subjected to the sort of aggressive questioning that is routine in most rape trials. It believes women judges will be less tolerant of such questioning.

"This is a very positive step and will help get justice for the rape victim," said Girija Vyas of India's National Womens' Commission. "Until now, male lawyers were able to threaten the victim and scare her."

The proposed law, which has to be put before parliament, will also allow the victim to have her lawyer with her during cross-examination. Until now, cross-examination in rape cases was held in camera to protect the victim's privacy - but she was not allowed to have her lawyer present.

The government has already introduced new fast-track courts to try to clear the backlog of rape and other serious cases.

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