Les Choses Me Brules

One of my high school French teachers once said to me, "Jana, les choses te brules." I suppose he meant that I do get fired up about things. I burn easily. (Yes, yes, both figuratively and literally).

Here it is, 1.16am and I'm burning about a comment a woman made to me today. She's an old timer lawyer. She's probably been in the practice of law for 20 years. She has been in it so long that she is unable to be objective and free-thinking about the craft. She takes the law and it's theories quite literally. And man, does it burn me.

Tonight, I commented that I found the practice of criminal law difficult because I care too much about the lives at stake.

"Well, that's only a concern for defence," she said.

By the book, the defence must worry about the life of the accused. The defence must worry about preserving the accused's freedom. By the book, the Crown prosecutor is only concerned with getting out the truth. The Crown represents the government of Canada and calls all evidence so that the truth may be seen.

By the book, the victim is merely a part of the evidence. The Crown prosecutor does not represent the victim, but uses the victim in order to bring out the elements of the crime.

This is where I disagree with the by-the-book lawyers. I agree that my role as a prosecutor was to get to the truth. But to deny the life of the victim and the real risks and hardships that the victim undertakes in order to provide her evidence is a sin.

It is also short sighted.

In order to prosecute crimes, the system relies on victims to come forward, report and then testify. By-the-book lawyers pay no attention to the rights of the victim, but merely use them for their testimony in their holy search for the truth. How long will it be before victims tell their friends, family and neighbours that not only was a conviction not achieved (convictions are rare in cases of sexual assault, for example), but that their rights were railroaded by defence and the Crown prosecutor did nothing to stop it. How long will it take those friends, family and neighbours to realize that laying a complaint with the police will cause more personal hardship than good? How long before our already low reporting rates in Canada dwindle to nothing?

This short-sightedness burns me. It not only negatively impacts the life of the victim, making her trial experience more heinous than it need be, but it also limits the Crown's ability to perform its duty in the long run.

All it takes to fix this problem is to allow the Crown to move beyond the book and getting at the truth to actually caring about the life and rights of the victim.

(1.34 am: 200 words later and I'm still burning)