That’s the gist of a federal Justice Department report made public last week. An amalgam of opinion polls and research gathered over a decade, it finds that folks in this country think the courts take too long to conclude cases, are too lenient in sentencing and too often ignore victims of crime.
Hey, isn’t that what our Conservative government has been telling us? Isn’t that what it’s trying to fix? Doesn’t this mean we’re right to wage a war on drugs — though it doesn’t seem to be winnable — and get tough on crime — though the violent kind has been in decline for several years?
But hold on a minute. The report says the public’s poor opinion of the courts is due in part to “a lack of understanding of the specific mandate of courts.” It advises public education to correct what are misconceptions.
Fat chance of that happening. This government’s whole public-safety agenda is based on those misconceptions. It thinks the courts are a nuisance, too, and wants to leave judges with less discretion in sentencing than they think appropriate.
Few Canadians have the time to spend as a spectator in a courtroom, where the subtleties of the law are applied to the background of offences and details of cases. They get most of what they know from media reports in this age of 30-second clips and 300-word newspaper reports.
News being what it is, what seems unusual or exceptional gets the headlines. The judicial reasons for lenient sentences are not always easy to appreciate.
For people who don’t believe in the redemption of souls gone wrong, it can look as if punishment is made to fit the criminal more than the crime.
When the courts find deficiencies in the laws drawn up by government, the government doesn’t hesitate to appeal to a public unlearned in the law, as it is in attempting to rewrite its prostitution laws that were struck down by the Supreme Court last year.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay has stated that prostitution causes “significant harms” to communities, prostitutes “and other vulnerable persons.” He wants to consult the public until March 17 so as to draft a law “that reflects our country’s values.”
He doesn’t sound as if he’s unsure what those values are. He has said that the new laws already are being drafted.
There were similar public consultations in 2010 on drunk-driving laws and family-law reforms. But public “input” is not always desirable.
The government refuses to hold public hearings on reforms to the Elections Act. The minister responsible for electoral reform says they’d be a “costly circus,” his parliamentary secretary a “gong show.”
The government thinks it’s on safer ground by playing on the conception that the criminal-justice system ignores victims of crime. It held a public consultation last year on a proposed Victims’ Bill of Rights.
The Supreme Court of Canada declared in 2012 that there must be “a just and proportionate balance” between criminals and victims. Crime victims’ ombudsman Sue O’Sullivan says the justice system needs to be “rebalanced” for victims.
The Criminal Code already provides for things such as victim-impact statements at sentencing, victims’ safety at bail hearings, publication bans and restitution orders.
Most victims’ services are provided at the provincial level. Involving victims at every level of proceedings, including parole and temporary-absence applications, would cause more delays that upset the public.
There was a time when the system of justice was balanced more in favour of victims — in the Middle Ages, when they were allowed to rise up against the accused. Vendettas were fought between families. Fines became assessed later as blood money.
Today, it’s recognized that those who commit crimes offend against society as well as their victims, and must answer to society’s courts.
Rebalancing the scales of justice for victims would temper justice, not with mercy, but with vengefulness.