Legislation promising people with an intellectual disability equal treatment in the justice system passes SA’s Parliament.
Attorney-General John Rau said South Australia was changing that.
“What is going to happen is that, to some extent, we are going to be able to rely on … experts, who are independent people, who give an independent assessment of what that person is telling us and help the courts to understand what the person is trying to communicate,” he said.
“Some of this communication might be non-verbal, it might be behavioural, it might be expressed in a whole range of ways which, to the untrained eye, don’t actually tell us anything.
“But to include a person who does have the experience and the expertise to be able, to objectively interpret that voice if you like and bring it to the court, I think it is a big step forward.”
Source: Intellectually disabled in SA secure better legal rights (via ABC news)