Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer

A committee of Parliament decided yesterday to drop a requirement in new legislation that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) be given before a woman may bring a charge of rape against her husband.

Instead, the police to whom the report is made would be able to determine for themselves whether there is merit in the charge, and proceed accordingly.

Sufficient merit

When the bill was drafted, giving statutory effect to the offence of marital rape, a control mechanism was incorporated, requiring that each such complaint be first referred to the DPP. He would then consider the case and determine whether there was sufficient merit in the complaint.

This was strongly opposed by several interest groups, which argued that requiring the DPP's consent would be an unnecessary fetter on the process and the woman's quest for justice.

At yesterday's meeting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament, Government member Norman Grant urged caution, however, arguing that the interests of the family unit should be of paramount importance.

"If the intervention of the DPP could lead either to a restoration of the relationship or the resolution of a problem that led to a particular action, it could lend itself to the fostering of a greater family relationship," he suggested.

No chance of reconciliation

Joyce Hewett of Woman Inc. countered this argument, saying that if a relationship had broken down to the point where one spouse had brought a charge of rape against the other, there would hardly be any chance of reconciliation.

"This is not where such efforts would occur and it is on that basis that we feel very strongly about requiring that requirement (the DPP's consent)," she said.

It was in the 1991 landmark case, RvR, that the United Kingdom House of Lords overturned a centuries-old presumption that a husband could not be deemed to have raped his wife. The court held that a husband could be convicted of the rape or attempted rape of his wife where she had withdrawn her consent to sexual intercourse.

In RvR the wife and husband were estranged and living apart, strengthening the wife's assertion that she had not consented to sexual intercourse.

It was in light of those circumstances that the House of Lords held that there was no longer a rule of law that a wife was deemed to have consented irrevocably to sexual intercourse with her husband.

Similarly, the Jamaican bill, amending the Offences Against the Person Act, has set out the circumstances in which marital rape might have occurred. These include where the spouses have separated and thereafter have lived separately; where there is a separation agreement between the spouses; where divorce proceedings have started; or where one spouse has been ousted from the matrimonial home for the protection of the other spouse.