In 2005, the police charged a man going by the name of Anil Sanhye Sanhye of rape.

According to the Constitution, a person is presumed innocent until he is found guilty by a court of law. As per the law, Anil Sanhye Sanhye was arrested, held in detention and had to appear for trial.

Not a lot of fuss is usually made of the constitutional principle of the presumption of innocence ? more often than not a person, even if he is presumed innocent technically, is eventually proved guilty.

Two years later, on Monday 20th August 2007, a court of law found the accused, Anil Sanhye Sanhye, not guilty of the crime. Magistrates Anjalee Ramdin Ragobur and Véronique Kwok Yin Siong Yen ruled that all charges against the accused be dropped because the alleged victim ? the girl whom Sanhye Sanhye supposedly raped ? was deemed not to be a credible witness and is assumed to have consented to sexual relations with the accused.

The presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle of our laws. Regardless of the fact that it is regularly flouted. This principle and the fact that it is treated with much disregard take altogether another meaning, when events show the importance of the presumption of innocence and the reasons why it exists.

The accused Sanhye Sanhye, presumed innocent, has never been found guilty by a court of law. The point is important enough to be underlined because public opinion is ever so keen to dismiss the presumption of innocence, always ready to jump to the conclusion that, if a man has been arrested, he must logically be guilty.

<B>Disproving a case of rape is a tough job</B>

The case is also a landmark in the sense that defence lawyers are generally in agreement on the fact that disproving a case of rape ? as well as proving it ? is a tough job. Lawyer Pramila Patten said in an interview with l?express in April, ?It is hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a rape has taken place.? This would explain, according to her, why most people found guilty of rape are seldom convicted of long sentences. ?Magistrates are so scared that they have made a mistake that they?d rather convict the rapist to a short sentence.?

Read the other way, this sentence can also be construed as magistrates tend to sentence rapists to short sentences in case the suspect has not been proved ?guilty beyond reasonable doubt? by the prosecution but that doubts subsist as to the actual ?innocence? of the accused. Alarming though this opinion sounds, it is shared by many defence lawyers.

Male reactions have been overwhelming after the court judgment, dismissing all charges against Sanhye Sanhye, was given yesterday. ?The law tends to protect the woman too much at the expense of men,? is the general agreement. It may well be so. The Sexual Offences Bill currently being examined by a select committee of the National Assembly provides a remedy to this. Section 23 of the bill provides that if an alleged victim is found to have given a false statement against a person, falsely accusing him of rape, she will be liable to a ten-year term of imprisonment.

Women organisations have been quick to condemn this clause, expressing concern that ?rape is hard to prove and an unsatisfactory police inquiry added to the fact that consent is hard to prove could leave room for a guilty man to walk free and a victim to be condemned?.

In this case, however, the opposite happened. Like Anil Sanhye Sanhye during those two years, many people ?presumed innocent? are at this moment behind bars. 30% of the penal population are ?innocent? people because although the principle is to grant bail and the exception is to withhold it, many people facing trial are not granted bail.

As former attorney general Razack Peeroo, the father of the Bail Act 1999, put it in his speech in Parliament then, ?what happens to the man who doesn?t earn while he is in detention, who might just lose his job, whose family life and career suffer and who loses his self- respect and good reputation at a moment where he is presumed to be innocent by the law??

He probably tries hard to regain some semblance of normalcy in his life. Anil Sanhye Sanhye wasn?t available to comment.