Prima Facie by Suzie Miller: What does justice look like, on the face of it?
Note: Reader discretion is advised. The content of this book review and the novel it covers comes with a trigger warning as they engage with topics of sexual assault.
By: Alina Riedmueller
Committee Member, Alina Riedmueller, recently completed an LLM in Human Rights Law and is currently working as an Admin Paralegal.
Once in a blue moon, a reader stumbles upon a piece of literature that brings out a compulsion to consume it all in one sitting. Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie, originally a one-woman stage play, is precisely the kind of literature that makes time stand still. It is an intensely moving and intimate encounter with the criminal justice system from multiple perspectives. It marks itself as a feminist piece that seeks to interrogate how much of the legal system is shaped by the male experience. Miller, herself a former lawyer, places at the centre of her narrative a fierce criminal barrister, Tessa Ensler, whose belief in the rule of law is inexorably tested when she becomes the victim of sexual assault, a reversal so devastating that it lays bare the fault lines in our court system, and more importantly, for Tessa, her very belief system.
Prima Facie offers a deeply reflective exploration of how the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, though essential to justice, can sometimes place unintended pressure on those who come forward in cases of sexual assault. The play invites us to consider how courtroom processes, built to protect fairness, can still leave survivors feeling as though their credibility is under greater scrutiny than the events themselves. The rarity exemplified in a work like Prima Facie lies in the way it nauseatingly offers a radical shift in perspective. When Tessa goes from cross-examining victims to testifying as one, she experiences a previously familiar process entirely anew. The abrupt change of tone is uncomfortable, as the once-neutral courtroom becomes a hostile terrain for Tessa.
Through Tessa’s ordeal, Miller dismantles the comforting myth of neutrality that accompanies legal systems, making it utterly evident that the law’s demand for coherence and certainty rarely accommodates the realities of life and trauma. Through moments of hesitation by the police, cautious prosecutorial approaches, and defence arguments that focus on inconsistencies, the play highlights how justice can feel distant even within a system striving to uphold it.
This fictional reality mirrors what survivors face every day. In the UK, only around 2–3% of reported rapes currently result in a charge or summons. In its 2023 briefing on improving access to independent legal advice, the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition indicates how victims resultingly lose faith in the justice system and are frequently retraumatised by police failures, delays, and the disbelief they encounter. Miller’s depiction of the investigative process as formalistic, sceptical, and chillingly impersonal seeks to portray what advocates have been saying for years.
Delays are another fundamental motif of the novel. The courtroom scenes capture not just the fear of testimony, but the corrosive passage of time caused by backlogs. Today, court backlogs have reached unprecedented levels, with sexual-offence cases taking up to two years or more to be heard. In Prima Facie, we experience the psychological consequences of these delays in the slow unravelling of both Tessa’s memory and confidence as she prepares to testify years after her assault. This erosion of memory and confidence in the justice system is pervasive and affects every participant in it, from victims to defendants to barristers. For those reliant on the processes and decisions of the criminal justice system, their distressing lived experiences are haphazardly accommodated and often compounded by the underfunded and overworked process of criminal justice, ultimately creating punishing gaps in between events and their trial, where victims and defendants are equally left in limbo.
At the outset, Tessa’s belief in “doing everything by the rules” reflects her faith in the integrity of the law. Yet her experience reveals how those same rules, though vital to due process, may not always offer full protection to those most in need of it. Her journey encourages a broader reflection on whether justice, in its current form, can always respond sensitively to the realities of sexual violence. Tessa reports promptly, complies with procedure, and trusts the system, yet finds herself interrogated rather than supported. The police and prosecution’s scepticism mirrors the EVAW’s briefings’ emphasis on a persistent culture of disbelief in law enforcement. Victims are not simply failed by individual officers but by an entire structure that privileges evidentiary neatness over human complexity.
Perhaps most strikingly, Prima Facie lays bare the question of access to representation, understanding, and belief. Tessa’s position as a barrister gives her a unique kind of resilience. She understands the language of the courtroom, the rhythm of cross-examination, and the structure of defence arguments. This knowledge empowers her to challenge the system, but it also reminds us that many do not share this privilege. In response to such concerns, the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 has promised stronger rights and greater support for survivors. Yet, as EVAW points out, its delivery depends on already underfunded local services, particularly Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs). Given the severe lack of funding for defendants in the criminal justice system and the reluctance of successive governments to fund a functioning legal infrastructure, it is hard to fathom a reality in which victims may also be afforded the legal advice and representation they need to navigate an adversarial legal system. Poorly supported victims undermine the proper functioning of the administration of justice, fostering a sense of unfairness and distrust among all its participants.
Prima Facie asks us to look beyond individual trials and reflect on the quieter spaces where justice may begin to falter in the assumptions, procedures, and everyday interactions that shape who feels heard and believed. It does not condemn the system, but rather invites empathy and understanding, encouraging us to imagine what justice could look like if it could hold fairness and humanity in equal measure. Ultimately, Miller’s work reads as both art and indictment. She dares us to ask: what does justice look like, on the face of it? And who, in fact, gets it?