Ottawa advocates are calling for reforms in the criminal justice system to improve how police, lawyers and judges treat survivors of sexual violence, particularly when they choose to report their cases. Read MoreSurvivors often feel intimidated to report incidents to the police, so much so that they choose not to, says the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre.
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Survivors often feel intimidated to report incidents to the police, so much so that they choose not to, says the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre.
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Ottawa advocates are calling for reforms in the criminal justice system to improve how police, lawyers and judges treat survivors of sexual violence, particularly when they choose to report their cases.
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Janath Vesna, director of programs for the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre, said survivors often feel intimidated to report incidents to the police, so much so that they choose not to.
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“It’s already hard to talk about something so intimate that’s happened to you, and then now you’re doing it with a stranger who’s often in uniform and who’s often male,” Vesna told the Ottawa Citizen in an interview.
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The Evening Citizen
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“That can be highly intimidating. It’s actually extra overwhelming if you’re from a racialized group, because these are colonial structures of power, so they feel extra intimidated as someone who doesn’t have the privilege of being white.”
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Vesna’s comments came after the federal ombudsperson for victims of crime published a report last Wednesday outlining the ways the criminal justice system harms survivors.
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The report, titled “Rethinking Justice for Survivors of Sexual Violence: A Systemic Investigation”, was a result of interviews with thousands of survivors, police, Crown and defence attorneys, and judges across the country. The research team also examined case studies, conducted surveys and news articles as part of the investigation.
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Benjamin Roebuck, who is also a professor of victimology at Algonquin College, said Canada’s criminal justice system betrays sexual assault survivors because cases are often delayed and charges dropped.
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The report mentioned the 2016 R v. Jordan ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, which established the right to be tried within a reasonable time frame and limits unreasonable trial delays, as a major reason why sexual assault charges are stayed, including cases involving children.
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The report also identified other issues, like survivors having their counselling and therapy records subpoenaed. Roebuck called it a “profound” violation and breach of trust, and many survivors often have to choose between seeking justice and accessing mental health resources.
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In the foreword to his report, Roebuck stated that the administration of justice is in “open disrepute” because of how well recognized the harms are, to the extent that police officers and Crown lawyers caution survivors against reporting or pressing charges.
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“Every statistic is a person, a life interrupted, families and communities affected by it. Survivors describe feeling like evidence and not human beings,” Roebuck said at a news conference on Parliament Hill on Nov. 19.
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“This is not just a legal issue, it’s a human rights issue. Survivors have charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person, and those rights must be respected. We can have better responses to sexual violence to test the fairness, compassion and accountability of our institutions. Survivors deserve a system that protects their dignity, their safety, and takes responsibility for not causing more harm.”
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Vesna said the report outlines a lot of what survivors have been telling the Rape Crisis Centre for years.
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“The high-level pieces are very similar to what survivors that we work with are facing,” she noted.
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A long time coming, says law professor
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Roebuck’s report was published almost four months after five hockey players — including former Ottawa Senators player Alex Formenton — were acquitted after being charged with sexual assault after an encounter with a woman at a 2018 gala celebrating the world junior team’s gold medal.
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The trial sparked a national conversation about the re-traumatization of sexual violence survivors. Crown attorney Karen Bellehumeur previously told reporters that the justice system must reform to protect victims of sexual violence, referring to the complainant’s nine days of testimony on the witness stand.
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Daphne Gilbert, a professor at the University of Ottawa and a member of the Law Society of Ontario, said the report finally acknowledges what law professionals have been saying for years.
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“Finally, someone with gravitas and some mandate here has acknowledged how difficult the criminal justice process is regarding sexual assault cases,” Gilbert told the Ottawa Citizen.
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“When those acquittals were handed down, and people read about the judgment, a lot of people were surprised because they didn’t understand how traumatizing it is for a complainant to go through that process.”
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Gilbert emphasized that re-traumatization often happens when a complainant first enters a police station. A lot of police officers do not have trauma-informed training on sexual violence, and they don’t always immediately believe the complainant.
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Listening and being empathetic towards a complainant at the start is always considered best practice, she added.
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“Just showing compassion and being affirming at that very early stage can be really powerful, but a lot of complainants don’t have that experience. We don’t have a system where we try to reduce the number of times complainants have to tell their story. They have to tell it to multiple police officers over multiple days or even weeks,” the professor said.
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Gilbert also raised concerns about the trial process, where complainants often have their testimonies cross-examined. Many complainants feel isolated during trial, especially since Crown lawyers are there to represent the public interest.
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“We don’t force defendants to testify. They have the right to remain silent, which I understand and agree with. … But it does mean that often the only voice that is heard is the complainant’s voice, which is put under a microscope. Her actions are the ones that are scrutinized, which is sort of perverse when you think about the ordinary criminal trial,” she said.
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Vesna highlighted a portion of the report that flagged an issue with victim impact statements being redacted in court.
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“The survivor has gone to the trouble to write out their victim impact statement, and then a good chunk of the stuff that is impactful has been redacted, and so they feel like they shared something so deeply personal for no reason,” Vesna said.
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“I think our survivors that we work with would highly agree that if they go to the trouble to make that statement and make themselves so vulnerable, it should be shared in its entirety.”
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Solutions come from within the justice system
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Vesna said Ottawa police have been working closely with the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre and other organizations that tackle violence against women for many years.
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She said volunteers and social workers at the centre have noticed small changes. For example, 911 operators and other frontline staff received training on how to be more compassionate if someone is calling about sexual violence at a bar and is intoxicated.
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“There’s no judgment. They’re just trying to support them through the crisis that they’re going through. So I think big strides have been made,” Vesna added.
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However, she said the response hasn’t been consistent because some officers have been trained but not others.
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“Any survivor should get the same compassionate and supportive response, no matter which officer shows up to support them,” she added.
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Vesna noted that the process is slow due to bureaucratic holdups.
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“With any kind of big bureaucracy, it’s going to be slow, especially in the criminal justice sector,” she said.
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Gilbert said it is essential to give survivors more choice and control over how they want to proceed with their case, especially if they wish to press charges.
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But it is equally important to teach trauma-informed defence lawyering to law students, she said.
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“A lot of students in my class want to be defence lawyers, and they believe in a system of rigorous defence, but we model trauma-informed practices, bringing in lawyers who do that kind of cross-examination,” the professor said.
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It is also important for judges to have a degree of control over their courtroom, Gilbert added.
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“I think what we can do is call out the bad lawyers. It is really important to give judges the ability to call out repetitive questions, humiliating questions and berating questions,” she said.
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“It starts on the judicial level, from judicial training and judges being aware that they’re not there just to be fair to the accused. The complainants have rights that are charter-protected, and that should also matter in that courtroom.”
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— With files from Amna Ahmad
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