Attorney General Siromi Turaga has stated that having a specialized court for sexual offense cases is his preference.

Turaga highlighted this just before parliament passed an amendment bill that now sees the deletion of the Anti-Corruption Division Court of the High Court and the Magistrates Court.

Turaga says that corruption cases are not that high when compared to the cases of sexual offenses revealed in the monthly statistics of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

“If anything, there should have been consideration for the establishment of specialized courts for serious sexual offenses. For instance, as for the rape and sexual offense statistics released by the ODPP in 2020, 246 people were charged with a total of 531 counts of sexual offenses; in 2021, 203 people were charged with a total of 461 counts of sexual offenses.”

Turaga says last year alone, 322 people were charged with a total of 768 counts of serious sexual offenses.

The Attorney General says these alarming statistics should have warranted the establishment of a specialized sexual offenses court.