Preparing a child witness in sex abuse cases: the destruction and re-creation of testimony.

Although dominant wisdom concerning child witnesses would have us believe that a child is not as competent as an adult in the exercise of memory and recall functions, recent research has shown the opposite to be true. However, it has also been shown that children do not process information in the same way as adults. This does not make them less reliable witnesses. It simply means that children who testify should be treated differently from adults. If a child's evidence is elicited in a correct and suitable manner, its testimony will be as competent as an in certain respects superior to an adult's. The South African Law Commission recognized the need for child witnesses to be protected from what is often a harsh and unsympathetic judicial system, and its recommendations resulted in the Criminal Law Amendment Act 135 of 1991 which became effective on 30 July 1993. The act introduced two novel concepts to the South African law of evidence: the closed-circuit video-link which enables a child to testify in a room removed from the courtroom, and the appointment of a suitably qualified person to act as an intermediary between the court and the child. It is submitted that the commission should have used the opportunity to modify the existing law concerning the admissibility of videotaped statements further, and perhaps more importantly, to formulate a code of practice to be incorporated into the act to regulate the substantive and technical content of videotaped interviews with child victims, thereby ensuring the rights of both the accused and the child victim.