Damien Carrick: Hello, welcome to the Law Report, Damien Carrick with you. The Solomon Islands have just held an election. It was mercifully peaceful, which is a wonderful achievement of this troubled country of 600,000. Following a long-running ethnic conflict, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, known as RAMSI, arrived in 2003. Its task has been to lay the foundations for long-term stability, security and prosperity. In recent times its mission has wound down and it now focuses solely on policing.

Steve Julax is an election project officer with Transparency International. He says the election's success is a result of RAMSI's long-term investment.

Steve Julax: It's good that the citizens are able to cast their vote without feeling threatened or intimidated, yes.

Damien Carrick: In past elections there have been widespread reports of vote buying. How prevalent has vote buying been during this election?

Steve Julax: I think it's still widespread, it is still prevalent here.

Damien Carrick: I have also seen reports that the electoral commission this time around have biometric voter registration to prevent double voting, and I think they do this by collecting digital photos and thumbprints from voters. How successful has that system been in preventing double voting?

Steve Julax: Well, at this point the fact that the biometric has had a few hiccups, it really helps in preventing multiple voting. You have your biometric information, data, and you can't fool the digital system.

Damien Carrick: And has multiple voting been a big problem in past elections?

Steve Julax: It has, where people can just vote from one constituency and then they can go on to the other constituency to cast their second vote.

Damien Carrick: I've also seen reports that Solomon Islands police have reported that a ballot box was stolen by an election official as a boat was being loaded with the boxes to go to a central counting station. Police are apparently investigating whether this was ordered by one of the candidates. Have there been many such incidents in this election?

Steve Julax: Yes, that's the only incident of that kind that happened.

Damien Carrick: So overall a successful nonviolent election, that's a wonderful thing for the Solomon Islands, isn't it.

Steve Julax: It is, it's very good to see how people conduct themselves during these elections. There was no criminal activity, there was no violence. People just exercised their freedom to cast their ballot for whoever they think and they want to represent them in the next parliament. So it's very good. TSI [Transparency Solomon Islands] is very happy with the way this election has been conducted so far, yes.

Damien Carrick: Steve Julax from Transparency International.

RAMSI's achievements are enormous, but the Solomon Islands remains bedevilled by profound problems. Justice Stephen Pallaras is a judge of the High Court of the Solomon Islands. Originally from South Australia, he's a former director of the state's office of public prosecutions. He has just returned to Australia after three years on the bench in Honiara. He has grave concerns about endemic corruption.

Stephen Pallaras: I think it's the biggest single problem that occupies the people of Solomon Islands. It pervades virtually every aspect of life there. It includes business life, it includes social life, law and order. It is a very, very major problem.

Damien Carrick: You've said that when people with no shoes and no money see people driving around in fast cars who only have $50,000 incomes but they are driving around in fast cars and may have five houses worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars each, that breeds a deep sense of disquiet and anger.

Stephen Pallaras: Of course it does, and if I was in that position I would probably feel exactly the same way. Really the issue is that nobody seems to do anything about it. Everybody in the Solomons knows that it is present, knows that it is pervasive, knows that it exists. The real issue is why doesn't anybody do anything about it. It is not a poor country. It is a country firstly which is one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Secondly it has a number of resources which it exports. Thirdly it receives millions upon millions of dollars in aid every year and has for many, many years, yet despite all of that it is a country in which there is no working community healthcare system, the roads are dangerous and a disgrace, there is not one single good road in the whole of the country. Law and order is an issue, businesses pay the costs of corruption each day, and there is an enormous amount of inequality. And of course when you are struggling to bring up a family of two or three kids in a leaf hut with no running water, you are going to look at and wonder how it is that others who are meant to be serving the community do not have those problems.

Damien Carrick: A week or so ago you gave your departing address to the High Court in Honiara and you spoke very movingly about Hospital Number Nine being a warehouse of misery. What's Hospital Number Nine?

Stephen Pallaras: I think it got its name from the fact that it was the ninth construction built by the American forces during World War II. It became then the only hospital on Guadalcanal in Honiara and is known as the National Referral Hospital. It is only a hospital in name, it has none of the characteristics that any of your listeners would attribute to a hospital, it is filthy, it is run down. I don't think it has running water. It has very little by way of bandages.

I had the unfortunate experience of having to attend there myself and get an injection for something. They didn't have the injection, we had to go and get it from a chemist elsewhere, then come back. There is barely a clean space in the whole of the two or three acres that it occupies, much less clean bedding, clean beds, clean material. It is a disgrace. And people go past it every day with great queues of people lining up to get in and it is really a monument to corruption.

Damien Carrick: Why corruption? Because there are the funds there allocated for its operation but they just don't reach the hospital?

Stephen Pallaras: Corruption because it is probably the biggest target for aid money from the Australian government, I'm not sure about other governments, it may be also others, but certainly the Australian government. That institution probably receives more consistent largess from aid than any other institution in the country. And to look at it you would be struggling to see where $10 of it has been spent, much less millions of dollars. It is just impossible to reconcile that this dump that is meant to serve the people of Guadalcanal and the people of the Solomon Islands generally as the principal hospital service…it is a disgrace to see it as it is, and it is impossible to recognise it as it as it exists now with the money that has been spent on it. Where has the money gone? Well, it's in the manner of its distribution. It goes to ministers who are responsible for distributing it to certain causes, and I can tell you, the money has not got to the hospital.

Damien Carrick: So we have endemic corruption in politics, in business. Do we have it also in the police, do we also have it in the judiciary and the legal profession?

Stephen Pallaras: Well, if you are asking me to illustrate it, I have to be cautious about that. All I can say is this, that this year in particular there have been allegations against a particular magistrate involving corruption. Parenthetically there are other allegations that have been continuously raised about particularly at the magistrates level I have not at this stage heard anything about any allegations about the judicial system at a higher level, but certainly there have been such allegations at the magisterial level. Amongst the police, yes, there are constant allegations, and I can only repeat what I hear as allegations rather than making factually based claims. But the common sense of the country is that the police in parts are corrupt in the sense that they have conflicting loyalties.

The Solomon Islands is really…it is a misnomer to call it a country because it is comprised of over 900 islands with probably as many languages, and if you ask a Solomon Islander about his country he first of all asks you, 'Well, what's in it for me?' Then, 'What's in it for my wontoks,' or my relatives. Then maybe, 'What's in it for my village?' Perhaps then, 'What's in it for my island?' Never will he ask you, 'Is it good for my country?' And so long as a national institution like the police force, as long as the members of that institution have loyalties to their wontoks, to their village, to their island, ahead of a national loyalty, then there will always be openings for corruption to work, and that needs to be addressed urgently.

Damien Carrick: What can be done to change this situation, to root out corruption?

Stephen Pallaras: It's not going to be easy. First of all there needs to be a serious educational program adopted to teach people in fact the true nature of corruption and the impact that it has on everyone's daily life. I'm not sure that it's commonly recognised. Certainly those who have to pay for it recognise it. So the first step is to I think direct some of the money which is flowing into the Solomon Islands into an educative program to describe the nature of corruption and the impact it has on everybody and everybody's future and their children's future.

The second thing that can be done is for an independent commission against corruption, an ICAC, to be established immediately, a commission which is designed to protect people from corruption, to detect corruption, to prosecute it and to prevent it. And the prevention, again, is part of the educative process. That commission needs to be independent of government, independent of the police, independent of the judiciary, independent in its true sense, so that a beginning can be made to tackle this problem.

The biggest weapon that I have found in my experience in other countries that have a corruption problem, the biggest legislative weapon apart from an ICAC, is what's called an unexplained wealth act, which would be dynamite in the Solomon Islands. Basically what that means is that if a man cannot explain where he got his assets from, that is to explain that he lawfully got them, he is then assumed to have obtained them unlawfully and they are taken from him. He faces charges of unlawful enrichment, and he has to defend those charges. If he can defend them, then fine, if he cannot then he is convicted and the property is confiscated. That would be I think the single most vital legislative tool to give the people of the Solomon Islands.

Damien Carrick: I can't imagine why the people in power in the Solomon Islands would put their hands up in the air and say, yes, okay, let's do this. Because presumably a lot of the people who are exercising power at the moment would not want these sorts of reforms.

Stephen Pallaras: It's for that very reason that it is necessary. You're not going to obtain success in the fight against corruption if you wait for those who benefit the most from it to do something about it. It has to be a popular demand, it has to be a popular movement, it has to be discussed, it has to be confronted.

Damien Carrick: Does there need to be pressure from countries like Australia for those sorts of reforms?

Stephen Pallaras: Well, apart from international sensibilities, in which Australia has to be careful about how it does interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, that aside, then yes, the people of the Solomon Islands needs to know that corruption is not an inevitable condition of life. And if by demonstrating what other countries have done and showing the success in their fights to the Solomon Island people, if that helps the argument, then by all means yes. I think Australia has a role to play there. I think if it had a role to play in the past it has failed because corruption has not even been attempted to be dealt with.

Damien Carrick: Why do you think Australia hasn't put more eggs into that basket in terms of focus and effort and resources into fighting corruption?

Stephen Pallaras: Firstly I'm not sure that it was ever the mission of RAMSI to do that. The essential target of RAMSI or the essential goal of RAMSI was to quieten the country from violence and to stop people literally killing each other on sight. To that extent it can be said that RAMSI has had success. I'm not sure that their goals included tackling corruption. So to that extent I'm not sure that they've failed in that because it may be they weren't given the licence to go after that.

But the other thing one has to understand is you can advise people what to do as advisers, when the Australian government finances advisers go into various aspects of Solomon Islands life, they go in as advisers and they give advice. The failure of that system or the problem with that system is this; that apart from giving advice there's very little power to direct that that advice be followed. And so you can advise until your eyes water. If the person listening either is incapable of accepting it, through language difficulties or cultural issues, or refuses to accept it because he or she thinks that it's his turn at the trough and while he is there he's going to make the most of it, whatever the reason is it's not the sort of advice that falls readily on ears that are willing to listen to it, because government after government has ripped the Solomon Islands off, ripped them off financially, ripped them off in terms of corrupt use of public moneys. And there is, I regret to say, a culture that has developed that getting office is like having a licence to take your turn at the communal trough. So it's a big task, and without strict legislative tools it's almost an impossible task.

Damien Carrick: I suppose for people living in a country which was colonised by Europeans, the idea of being told by Australians, Europeans, Caucasians that you should do things differently, you should do things better, that's full of difficulties, that is really problematic, isn't it.

Stephen Pallaras: It's fraught with danger, and it's something that every expat who opens his mouth, such as myself, has to be aware of. The last thing that one wants to appear as is the white man coming in on the big white horse who knows all the answers. I don't know all the answers and nobody knows all the answers. All one can do hopefully is to give an honest reflection of what one sees in the community, say what it is, say it as it is, because you don't help anybody by gilding the lily or by exaggerating or by not revealing what you see, and then leaving it up to the locals to say yes or no, I agree or don't agree, and if I agree, well, then let's do something about it. That has been my purpose, to try and initiate at least a discussion, at least a realisation and an acknowledgement that corruption is holding back the development of what is a very beautiful country.

Damien Carrick: You're listening to the Law Report on ABC Radio National and a conversation with Justice Stephen Pallaras, who for the last three years has been on the High Court of the Solomon Islands, and who now is returning to Australia, at least for the foreseeable future.

Justice Pallaras, we've just seen elections in the Solomon Islands, how widespread is the problem of vote buying?

Stephen Pallaras: Well, we left on the day before the election was held. Prior to that it was again common knowledge that vote buying was almost universal in the Solomon Islands, that people would attempt by any means to ensure that they were able to acquire the votes of people in villages, in communities, in islands. And there is a night that is called the Devil's Night, and the Devil's Night is the night before an election, and the Devil's Night is when the politicians visit their communities with effectively big bags of money. And the communities visit their politicians and wait for this to occur, wait for this night to come around and line up and they are handed out either sums of money or things like promises for corrugated iron for their huts or a pump for their water. They are handed these the night before the election in an attempt not to show how goodhearted the candidate is but in an attempt to secure their votes. That's happened in every election, and I understand from what people tell me it has happened in this election. So, how widespread? It is pervasive, it is throughout the Solomon Islands.

Damien Carrick: Is there discussion around this practice? Is there controversy around this practice? Do people there want to change it?

Stephen Pallaras: I don't know that people want to change it because they see it as probably the only benefit they can ever get from their politicians who are renowned for breaking promises that are never even discussed, much less kept after the election. But in the meantime of course they can get a little bit of cash that might help them through the next couple of weeks. So I don't know that there is much interest in changing that. In the national paper before I left there was a cartoon which offered the electors a clear choice; you could choose the devil and take the money (and you have to understand this is a very religious country), you can choose God and not take the money and ask simply for an honest election. So there is recognition at least on some levels in the media that this is a choice between good and bad. Most people I wouldn't think see it as good and bad. Most people see it as an opportunity to get some advantage out of a political system that has in fact been imposed upon them and about which they understand very little, except that many promises are made to them and that's the last they ever hear of them.

Damien Carrick: In your departing speech to the High Court in Honiara the other day you talked about the prevalence of violence against women. How common is that violence?

Stephen Pallaras: It is a national sport, I regret to say, to treat women as chattels, as property, as things. It is the most degrading, debasing and disturbing element of Solomon Islands society. There have been recent, within the last 12 months, reports and figures put out by I think it's the Department of Women's Affairs in the Solomon Islands, which suggests that certainly more than 50%, I think it was around 58% or 59% of women who were interviewed, and they were women under 45, reported having been sexually assaulted by their husbands, by their boyfriends, by their fathers, by their brothers or by their male cousins.

The other figure that disturbed me most was that two out of five of those women indicate that they had been assaulted sexually when under the age of 15. And 50% of those had been sexually assaulted three or more times. So it wasn't a one-off occasion, it was a lifestyle. Women and female children in the Solomon Islands are regarded, regrettably, as sexual playthings for the men, whose attitude to women is not only archaic it's prehistoric. And I've had the opportunity, through the good grace of the Chief Justice who has permitted me to do this, to go around to various schools, to church groups and communities and speak to them about this issue. And what shocked me the most was in speaking to high school students, forms four, five and six, I would ask the boys to put their hand up and leave their hands up if they thought that they were in any way better than the girls. More than half kept their hands up.

And what was even more shocking is when I asked the girls the same thing—put your hand up and leave it up if you think that men are better than women—more than half the girls left their hand up. That's the attitude that the young children in the country have. It's barely surprising that when they get a little older that they regard women and treat them in the manner in which they do. It is a terrible, terrible problem.

There is a custom in many of the communities to pay a bride price, which…and I profess that I'm not an expert on it and I hope that I don't make factual errors, but as I understand it it is this, that when a woman is given to a man by her family in marriage, that it is his responsibility to compensate the family of the bride by paying them…not to the woman, but by paying the family a bride price. And that could be anything really, depending on the relative wealth of the families and I suppose what value in terms of either pigs or shell money or rice or whatever is the currency, is placed upon the girl.

The attitude of the men thereafter is that 'I can do what I like with this woman, who is now my wife, because I have paid for her and therefore she is mine'. And it's that attitude which permeates not only the community in Malaita but in many other communities around the country, and is part of and only part of the archaic relationship between the sexes in Solomon Islands.

Damien Carrick: How well do police and the courts and the politicians, the justice system, the institutions generally, do they play an effective role in trying to change this situation and tackle the violence against women?

Stephen Pallaras: Let me answer that this way. When I first went to the Solomon Islands, the task that was given to me was principally to deal with what was known as the tension trials, a period between the late '90s and the early 2000s when there was effectively civil war in that country. Many murders were committed, and there were many trials that had not been dealt with because the local judges had to…at least disqualified themselves from hearing the trials due to the fact that they either knew the victims or knew their witnesses or knew the accused. My initial task therefore was to go in and deal with these trials as an independent person who had no connection with the accused or the victims. When that finished I was then given effectively the management of all of the criminal cases that came into the courts, the criminal courts. Other judges were doing civil work and I was doing criminal work.

What shocked me most was the never-ending avalanche of sexual offence trials that came into my courtroom; rapes, incest, sexual assaults of all kinds. When I was dealing with these cases I did some research as to how they had been dealt with in the past, because I wanted to understand for myself why they were so common. I found to my horror that a rapist was commonly dealt with by a very, very light term of imprisonment, and I'm talking about anywhere between six months and three years, when the penalty for rape in Solomon Islands was life imprisonment.

I took the view that this treatment by the courts of rapists was partly responsible for the fact that there were a never ending series of rapes, because part of a good sentencing policy, one of the objectives is to impose a sentence that is appropriate to the crime and to impose a sentence that will, in part, deter others from committing it. Well, what was clear to me was that no one was being deterred. This was virtually a national sport. Everyone was doing it, because they knew that if they took the risk they'd be slapped over the wrist with a wet lettuce leaf.

When the trials came before me I started increasing the sentences to double figures. And so from that point onwards, at least myself and one other judge started…and with the support of the Chief Justice now…started to re-evaluate how rapists and other sexual offenders were regarded and imposed penalties which were more appropriate. So to answer your question—have the courts been doing anything?—yes, but only just recently.

Damien Carrick: Okay, courts are one part of the equation, what about police and politicians?

Stephen Pallaras: The politicians don't want to know about it, the politicians will tell you that they have made enormous strides forward because they have just recently passed a bill that has been sitting in the House for an enormous period of time, but they've passed on what they call a Family Protection Bill into a Family Protection Act which purports to offer some protection to women who find themselves in domestic situations of violence when they are constantly being beaten by drunken husbands.

Now, those sorts of Acts which purport to create protection devices for women and children in danger of their lives have to be supported by financial commitment. For instance, you have to have refuges created for women to escape drunken, beating, violent husbands. You have to have money put into childcare. You have to have money put in for social workers. You have to have psychologists, or if necessary psychiatrists, to treat the victims in relation to the enormous trauma that they have suffered. Now, let me say this; not one penny has been spent on those. So where is the commitment? It is nowhere. The only commitment that they have is what they say. What they do is entirely different. So do the politicians help? Not one jot.

Damien Carrick: Justice Stephen Pallaras, who has just returned to Australia after spending three years as a judge on the High Court of the Solomon Islands.

That's the Law Report for this week. A big thank you to producer Anita Barraud, and to audio producer Matthew Crawford. Do visit our website at abc.net.au/rn, there you can find audio on demand, transcripts and of course podcasts. Podcasts are also available at iTunes. Do leave your comment or keep in touch via Twitter, the show's handle is @LawReportRN, or my personal handle is @damien_carrick. Talk to you next week with more law.