OSLO, June 6 (Reuters) - Norway strengthened its rape laws on Friday by criminalising sex without explicit consent, joining a growing list of countries to widen the definition of sexual attacks. Up to now, prosecutors have had to show that an attacker used violence or threatening behaviour, or had sexual intercourse with someone who was unable to resist, to secure a conviction for rape.
Under the new law passed by parliament, anyone who has sex with someone who has not consented to it by word or deed could be convicted of rape, even without violence. Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland have all introduced consent-based rape laws in recent years. Sweden changed the legal definition of rape in 2018 to sex without consent - a change that officials said resulted in a 75% rise in rape convictions. Denmark followed in 2020 by passing a law that widened the circumstances that could constitute rape.
It is still criminal law so “innocent until proven guilty”.
The issue was that before “didnt resist, but wasnt physically incapable” was enough to not make it rape, even if there is other reasons why the victim might not resist, being too scared to resist being the obvious one.
You have to think about situations where one did consent at first, but later, afterwards, changes their mind.
There will be no real evidence, but then the accuser will (must) be regarded a witness.
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The accused has no way of getting out.
Luckily the courts are smarter than that.
/Swede, where we had the same change to our laws a few years back
So, how do they solve it?
(As far as I remember, they didn’t when it went against Julian Assange)
That law wasn’t in effect and wouldn’t have applied to Assange. However, the facts that he admitted to would constitute rape even under the previous law. (He penetrated her without condom when she had previously consented to sex based on the premise that a condom was used).
Courts together with the police are quite good at figuring out when a story doesn’t hold. We actually had such a case just these last few days where the woman got sentenced instead for having lied about being raped.
So, how do they solve it?
How is that different from now?
In most cases there is only the accuser and accused that are witnesses.
The court will still have to evaluate if the statements made are believable and evidence is consistent with it or not.
Sweden has these laws since quite a while. Contrary to the outrage back then, it seems there has been no relevant increase in false allegations being prosecuted.