Jian Ghomeshi Case Study

The moment the judge issued his not-guilty verdict in the Jian Ghomeshi case last week, the wailing and gnashing of teeth began. A public opinion poll found that most Torontonians (especially women) thought he should have been convicted. Many people said their faith in the justice system had been shaken.

The case has been so polarizing that some people can’t discuss it with their friends. “I agree with the verdict but I have to keep my opinion to myself,” one woman told me. Others who spoke up have been promptly unfriended. Being outraged about the Ghomeshi case is a way of signalling your general outrage about the justice system, which, we’re told, is grotesquely unfair to sexual assault victims.

All this outrage is a tribute to the #IBelieveSurvivors …show more content…
Choking, punching, slapping and hair pulling are all criminal offences, to be sure. But the alleged assaults were of short duration and did not result in injuries. When they learned the details of the allegations, several people I spoke with wondered why the case had gone to trial at all.

5. Nobody expects a victim of a violent crime to be a perfect witness. That is not the standard that is expected in court. The courts make allowance for minor errors and inconsistencies in recollection. It is also by now widely accepted that women in abusive, long-term relationships have a very hard time leaving. But the courts are not obliged to abandon common sense. If a woman says she was assaulted by a man she had just met, it is legitimate to ask why she kept pursuing him even though she claims she never wanted to see him again.

6. Alternatives to the current judicial process aren’t so easy to come up with. Some people advocate a non-adversarial approach – perhaps something like a sentencing circle, which would allow an abuser to acknowledge the wrong he or she has done. That’s all very well, but it only works when both parties agree to it, and when the accused person is willing to admit to what he did and knows he won’t face further

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