Today, one of the main headlines in Norway's biggest newspaper, Aftenposten, was the acquittal of a man who was falsely accused of rape by his daughter. The daughter, who is 16 this year, claimed that the rapes took place when she was 10-12 years old. There were no witnesses, no traces of DNA, no medical test results and no evidence of behavioral change that supported the daughter's claims, i.e. no corroborating evidence beyond her bare accusations.

The District Court still managed to find the father guilty, sentenced him to 6 years behind bars and ordered him to pay damages. When the case was brought in front of the appeals court, the jury unanimously decided in favor of the defendant, proclaiming that they could not claim someone to be guilty based on what they found to be non-cohesive and internally contradictory depositions. The judges, however, decided to overturn the jury's verdict, and upheld the previous sentence. Only months later did the daughter confess that her accusations were false, and that she had lied in court.

This case makes me furious with anger. Yet again, the legal system decides to arbitrarily take someone's word as truth, letting the defendant bear the burden of being presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The only redeeming side to this case is that the Norwegian legal system does not take false rape accusations lightly. Earlier this year the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled on a similar case, and in their verdict they sentenced the accuser to jail with the following scathing remarks:

"The last 7 years, the legal punishment associated with sexual assault has become increasingly strict, and consequently a false rape accusation must be treated as a grave and serious offence."