Well, the past few days have been pretty intense. Aside from the research, I've been going around with Zahra, my mentor at METRAC, to various places to meet various people.
The first thing I did on Wednesday morning was to go and meet Zahra at the Attorney General's launch of an Access Justice website and phone service. In theory, they are very noble ideas that would work very well - to give people education about legal procedure, one could then have some measure of comfort in having learned a bit of what to expect when going to court. The phone service was also supposedly available in 180 (really!) languages, indicating some super-large translation staff, which would then help to give groups who might lack the ability to express themselves effectively at court, and thus understand many of the procedures/rationales, the chance to at least know what was going on.
I understand they were there to display its potential, but I did have some concerns. First off, I'm not sure how this would work, but the phone centre workers spoke English and so questions like "what language do you speak?" would likely have problems being understood or clearly answered by the people who might benefit from a translator. Heck, if one answered in pure Tri, it might never be figured out that was Tri and people might think it was some other African language. Also, with respect to the website, there was lots of information but only on three areas: criminal, civil and family law. This was doubly concerning because the major area of law most people encounter (administrative law, which covers tribunals and boards) wasn't even mentioned on the website, and so people might get the wrong impression that the institutions of administrative justice aren't at least quasi-legal in nature, and thus they might not be able to figure out their full rights for appeal or what they need to illustrate upon application to one of them. Secondly, the government didn't have much up there to address victims or complainants and their potential avenues of redress or the rationale behind evidentiary procedure - if you were a victim of rape, I'm not sure if many people know that you can sue under a head of assault as well for damages, as well as seek a long prison term. Or, if you got frustrated by how a police examination occurred beforehand, if you knew the requirements for evidence, you could then decide whether or not the police had done their full duty in getting your statement (and acting upon it), or if there were ways to protest if evidence had been obtained by illegal means (this latter consideration being of concern to both complainants and accused). I'm not sure why the government had actually oriented its website towards those three areas as it was and in the focus that it chose - for criminal law, one often will hire a lawyer. For civil law, one will also (to determine damages to be sought). For family law, since people are understandably going through emotional trauma at the time of separation, a lawyer is then often hired to manage to negotiate for the best position for their client, instead of letting the parties vent at each other with no real resolution (and potentially further damaging any children that might be caught in the crossfire). Why would one pick three areas where lawyers would often be hired, to explain the law, and not in areas people might not think to consult a lawyer (administrative, perhaps environmental, or maybe small incorporation)? So in that way, the mind boggled.
Later, I went to the Barbara Schlifer clinic (for women who face violence, mostly domestic) and looked at their intake forms whilst meeting with Paola, their coordinator. It was a very informative session, where I got to see just how hard it is to determine variables for intake and how to record some of the sensitive information. I found it interesting that in terms of the access justice website, none of the people from this clinic were invited to attend. It would be people like Paola, I'd think, who would most benefit from this information because she could then give it to potential clients to hopefully use, so they could realize their full legal rights even in their positions of distinct power imbalance between them and their partners. However, that would also require the website to actually have the according information available to explain to these victims of violence what the procedure would be, what kinds of resultant protection could be offered or asked, etc. I know that the Access website isn't supposed to be an advocacy site, but wouldn't access to justice necessarily include extending beyond courtroom procedure employed in a distinct minority of cases?
That was most of what I did on Wednesday, along with more research on consensual unions (and seeing the problematic nature the lack of definition or legal conditions brings in further detail). I have an idea that consensual unions will play a significant part of my comparative law essay, but we'll see when I talk to WILDAF.
And now Thursday - I got to witness the starting 2 hours of a sexual assault trial, including the base procedure (citing the charges, etc). Though the judge did conduct himself in a professional manner and did not give any outward signs of bias towards either side (and tried to be more conversational to the complainant, who was 15), it was odd that Crown in some ways lacked the same restraint.
The first thing I thought was odd in the courtroom was that the accused got to sit there, always, whilst the complainant had to testify through CCTV into the courtroom. While I have the feeling that is strict court tradition (to have the accused present in the court so he can face everything head-on, maximizing the accused's ability to defend and potentially exculpate themselves), I wondered how it would look from the side of the complainant: due to their discomfort, they got penalized and had to sit outside the courtroom, whilst the accused got to sit inside and see everything from his vantage point. Heck, the complainant only has the voice of the judge to go by from inside the courtroom, which means they're talking to a faceless black box, whilst the accused gets the chance to see the complainant through the CCTV camera. If they know of this process, it could be really easy to think that court inherently is favoring the accused and is not trying to be welcoming to them to testify. It sort of begs the question as to why the accused wouldn't be excused from the courtroom if the complainant needs to testify, but I know that in itself raises lots of other questions, not least about that being procedurally unfair to the accused, because then they would not be best able to address accusations.
The second thing which I thought was odd was the presence of both defence and Crown in the CCTV room at the same time, and the generally austere nature of the CCTV room (small, cramped, dark). The decor might increase the anxiety of the complainant, but what really struck me was how Crown continually bungled the CCTV broadcasting that day and pushed the complainant's testimony back a full half hour because of it. Seriously - the AV person being out on vacation is a bad, bad excuse (and was the one used this time) for this to be allowed (especially since I think it can raise the stress of on the complainant unnecessarily). Is it really *that* hard to train more than a few people on AV, or better yet, to hire another AV specialist on temp basis for that small period of time for a vacation?
Thirdly, in the CCTV room, directly before the complainant, the Crown and defense were very collegial and conversational. Without the presence of a judge, it was almost like they had dropped some of the pretense of detachment they had with one another. Sure, it's fine to have friends and all, but doesn't anyone get the feeling that's potentially unprofessional, and even worse, it might make the complainant hesitate in testifying if they see the lawyers from opposing sides acting in such a manner? The whole idea of the CCTV was to increase complainant comfort in testifying, even...
Those were just some issues I had with the process at hand. What I thought was good was the initial intake interview, which involved a very patient female cop, though that environment wasn't comfortable (since the complainant often rebounded between being docile and informative to standoffish). I also got a better sense of complainant behavior and could appreciate some of the psychological effects noted by others in this testimony (though I felt the complainant gave a very strong account from what I watched) - overall, I think this morning of observing the court was very helpful to my future work in Ghana.
In the afternoon, I got to meet with Rita and Kelly at METRAC to learn about the education/audit program they use to promote community safety. Though I'm not going to be directly involved in that in Ghana, I found it interesting because it quickly became more of a discussion of Ghanaian society and how messages might best be moved through that kind of community, particularly because African societies are both more collective and church-oriented than western countries. That, I hope, will be helpful if I am asked to potentially research and recommend new methods by which WILDAF can go out to educate the community.
Well, that's all for now. On Friday, we'll see what happens! And I bet my next article will be from Ghana itself. Until then!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Working with METRAC, days 1/2
Well, these days have been pretty interesting. The weekend was spent getting oriented in Toronto and sightseeing (I walked a lot, had some fun, made my feet complain incessantly, etc...) and I got a general gist of the city (which I think has a lot of character in some places, but is also quite sterile in others, just like every other city I've been to).
On Monday I went with my advisor at CCI to the METRAC office. METRAC is an organization that specializes in advocacy and education for domestic violence against women and children in particular. They complete a large range of work, and not just the policy stuff; it was great to talk to people and get a sense of their community outreach activities, their educational programs, and their general sense of where lessons can be addressed.
METRAC also completed a court watch study in Toronto in the years 2005-2006 concerning victims of sexual abuse. Overall, the findings were that the justice system, while procedurally fair (in theory per the Code) to the complainant, was often fraught with elements that increased the difficulty complainants had bringing their testimony and case to court.
Sexual assault tends to have the testimony of the complainant and defendant as the primary pieces of evidence (and in many cases, the sole), and so it is clear that the complainant (the one bringing the charge) be able to give their testimony and above all to feel safe and comfortable. For most people, testimony in court is already a nervewracking ordeal because of the probing nature of cross-examination and the fact that the court is watching and observing your every word and move. This is magnified in a case of sexual assault because the victim is often socially stigmatized - for instance, a normal assault victim (a gunshot wound, etc) will often elicit some sympathy, or the community will generally accept that the inflicted damage was not caused by him, by caused by those who perpetrated the damage, and at the very least society tends to examine the perpetrator more stringently than the victim. In sexual assault, certain social viewpoints exist which shift the community's examination onto the victim, mostly because people have preconceived myths about the parties who could inspire the act. Often, the victim has to have been "asking for it" in some way, or the perpetrator has to fit into some typecast mould of just who is a sexual predator. This kind of preconception does exist for all crimes but people seem to realize it is a preconception when the crime is something like an assault or theft or even murder.
In Canada, there are some efforts made to try and break down these perceptions but they do persist even in the legal system. I think that in Ghana there will usually be difficulties for complainants in bringing their case to court, which may discourage people from testifying. In Canada, the rate of prosecuted accusations is extremely low (somewhere in the single digit percentage range), and that's with what many Westerners perceive as a greater position of economic and social parity between the sexes. In Ghana, are the rates even lower, and does that actually distort the image of just what forms of domestic violence take place (since prosecution of the crime might need to fit under certain social beliefs held by the Crown attorney)? And how are things such as testimony, complainant anonymity, the rules of evidence, and procedural training for Crown and judges handled?
The Crown has a simpler role in some ways because in prosecuting the case they can at least state that they take the side of the complainant, at least for the facts of this offense. This might lead to better interaction between the complainant and Crown, though:
- even in Canada the Crown may not advocate as strongly as they should (ie, they don't raise as many objections as they could when certain things such as the relationship between complainant and accused get raised - though it may be important to determining a future sentence, the real fact of the matter is not whether they were husband or wife or strangers, it's *whether there was no consent and if the elements of sexual assault occurred*...)
- the Crown may not strongly argue to eliminate certain other myths that might get raised (one myth the defence tends to raise is that consent can be implied, and it simply cannot for the purposes of sex... if one views sex as a contract between two consenting parties, then by contractual rules there has to be a clear and unequivocal offer and acceptance of the contract in order for it to be considered a real contract; it's like telling someone to show up at 9AM and them then assuming that you instantly offered them a job and they are then entitled to all manner of pay, without the formal document)
It's things like this which may discourage complainants from participating in the process, but at least the Crown lawyer will not be accused of bias if they advocate more strongly on behalf of the complainant - after all, it is the case the Crown chose to pursue.
Where I think the matter gets difficult is to what degree judges should accommodate the complainant. Testimony from any witness can be spotty, but for many victims of sexual assault the testimony may be incoherent if the questioning is not performed in the right manner. Much more often than other victim types, victims of sexual assault will work to forget the experience, or block out certain replaying memories, which may then be exploited by the defence in cross-examination, and harsh cross-examination may deflate the complainant's will to fully testify and participate by their perceptions of how court is going. While the defence's job is definitely to argue on behalf of the defendant (and I thus agree that some level of probing cross-examination has to be allowed in order for the trial to be fair), it becomes difficult for a judge (or those organizing judicial-education seminars) to determine what line to take in trying to make the courtroom an environment where the complainant feels safe. Is the most clinical, most professional attitude, without a trace of emotion the best course of action to take, or should there be a concerted effort to give some lenience to the complainant in order to encourage them to participate? Also, does this concerted effort cause the court to become procedurally biased, and diminish the rights of the accused? All of these questions are difficult to answer, which is what I found from the METRAC reports.
I have also had the chance to read quite a bit about Ghana's DVA, some of Ghana's DVA itself and many reports about Ghanaian society. What is interesting about Ghanaian society is the growth of "consensual unions", which in some ways are like the common-law status conferred in North America. There is some recognition of these, though many Ghanaians feel that they have only come because of the imposition of Western values and systems which erode the sanctity of marriage. Because of this, consensual unions have some very different effects for the parties involved upon dissolution. Property, for instance, does not get divided per a time fashion (how long the relationship existed) or in many cases an effort fashion (how much work or resources parties put into an asset), but gets divided between genders along some lines which are often detrimental to women (for instance, property bought using the efforts of both people in the relationship [I refer to heterosexual because, as far as I can recall, homosexuality is still unmentioned or perhaps illegal in Ghana] will revert to the male). This raises the question of just how far I should look into acts which aren't strictly related to domestic violence: it might be quite possible that the fear of a dissolution of the relationship and the resultant loss of property in a consensual union influences certain women in Ghana to not report cases of domestic violence or sexual assault. Does this mean that in trying to look at potential reasons why certain countries may be successful over others, I should look at variables which may not have a strict relation, and if so, how far should this examination go?
The rest of the week should be interesting. I want to go see court procedure for trials involving sexual assault - reading about it is informative but watching it first-hand will give me a better sense of what Canada attempts to employ. I also am currently reading something that looks at land divisions in Ghana along a gender perspective, and I'm trying to take notes on that with respect to both domestic violence and/or power imbalances, as well as the resultant health status of people in the region (per some work I want to do for Judy). I'm looking forward to the rest of this week! And hopefully, I'll sit down more tomorrow, since my legs are starting to grow sorer! But my head is spinning in a good way and I'm having a great time!
Until the next entry!
On Monday I went with my advisor at CCI to the METRAC office. METRAC is an organization that specializes in advocacy and education for domestic violence against women and children in particular. They complete a large range of work, and not just the policy stuff; it was great to talk to people and get a sense of their community outreach activities, their educational programs, and their general sense of where lessons can be addressed.
METRAC also completed a court watch study in Toronto in the years 2005-2006 concerning victims of sexual abuse. Overall, the findings were that the justice system, while procedurally fair (in theory per the Code) to the complainant, was often fraught with elements that increased the difficulty complainants had bringing their testimony and case to court.
Sexual assault tends to have the testimony of the complainant and defendant as the primary pieces of evidence (and in many cases, the sole), and so it is clear that the complainant (the one bringing the charge) be able to give their testimony and above all to feel safe and comfortable. For most people, testimony in court is already a nervewracking ordeal because of the probing nature of cross-examination and the fact that the court is watching and observing your every word and move. This is magnified in a case of sexual assault because the victim is often socially stigmatized - for instance, a normal assault victim (a gunshot wound, etc) will often elicit some sympathy, or the community will generally accept that the inflicted damage was not caused by him, by caused by those who perpetrated the damage, and at the very least society tends to examine the perpetrator more stringently than the victim. In sexual assault, certain social viewpoints exist which shift the community's examination onto the victim, mostly because people have preconceived myths about the parties who could inspire the act. Often, the victim has to have been "asking for it" in some way, or the perpetrator has to fit into some typecast mould of just who is a sexual predator. This kind of preconception does exist for all crimes but people seem to realize it is a preconception when the crime is something like an assault or theft or even murder.
In Canada, there are some efforts made to try and break down these perceptions but they do persist even in the legal system. I think that in Ghana there will usually be difficulties for complainants in bringing their case to court, which may discourage people from testifying. In Canada, the rate of prosecuted accusations is extremely low (somewhere in the single digit percentage range), and that's with what many Westerners perceive as a greater position of economic and social parity between the sexes. In Ghana, are the rates even lower, and does that actually distort the image of just what forms of domestic violence take place (since prosecution of the crime might need to fit under certain social beliefs held by the Crown attorney)? And how are things such as testimony, complainant anonymity, the rules of evidence, and procedural training for Crown and judges handled?
The Crown has a simpler role in some ways because in prosecuting the case they can at least state that they take the side of the complainant, at least for the facts of this offense. This might lead to better interaction between the complainant and Crown, though:
- even in Canada the Crown may not advocate as strongly as they should (ie, they don't raise as many objections as they could when certain things such as the relationship between complainant and accused get raised - though it may be important to determining a future sentence, the real fact of the matter is not whether they were husband or wife or strangers, it's *whether there was no consent and if the elements of sexual assault occurred*...)
- the Crown may not strongly argue to eliminate certain other myths that might get raised (one myth the defence tends to raise is that consent can be implied, and it simply cannot for the purposes of sex... if one views sex as a contract between two consenting parties, then by contractual rules there has to be a clear and unequivocal offer and acceptance of the contract in order for it to be considered a real contract; it's like telling someone to show up at 9AM and them then assuming that you instantly offered them a job and they are then entitled to all manner of pay, without the formal document)
It's things like this which may discourage complainants from participating in the process, but at least the Crown lawyer will not be accused of bias if they advocate more strongly on behalf of the complainant - after all, it is the case the Crown chose to pursue.
Where I think the matter gets difficult is to what degree judges should accommodate the complainant. Testimony from any witness can be spotty, but for many victims of sexual assault the testimony may be incoherent if the questioning is not performed in the right manner. Much more often than other victim types, victims of sexual assault will work to forget the experience, or block out certain replaying memories, which may then be exploited by the defence in cross-examination, and harsh cross-examination may deflate the complainant's will to fully testify and participate by their perceptions of how court is going. While the defence's job is definitely to argue on behalf of the defendant (and I thus agree that some level of probing cross-examination has to be allowed in order for the trial to be fair), it becomes difficult for a judge (or those organizing judicial-education seminars) to determine what line to take in trying to make the courtroom an environment where the complainant feels safe. Is the most clinical, most professional attitude, without a trace of emotion the best course of action to take, or should there be a concerted effort to give some lenience to the complainant in order to encourage them to participate? Also, does this concerted effort cause the court to become procedurally biased, and diminish the rights of the accused? All of these questions are difficult to answer, which is what I found from the METRAC reports.
I have also had the chance to read quite a bit about Ghana's DVA, some of Ghana's DVA itself and many reports about Ghanaian society. What is interesting about Ghanaian society is the growth of "consensual unions", which in some ways are like the common-law status conferred in North America. There is some recognition of these, though many Ghanaians feel that they have only come because of the imposition of Western values and systems which erode the sanctity of marriage. Because of this, consensual unions have some very different effects for the parties involved upon dissolution. Property, for instance, does not get divided per a time fashion (how long the relationship existed) or in many cases an effort fashion (how much work or resources parties put into an asset), but gets divided between genders along some lines which are often detrimental to women (for instance, property bought using the efforts of both people in the relationship [I refer to heterosexual because, as far as I can recall, homosexuality is still unmentioned or perhaps illegal in Ghana] will revert to the male). This raises the question of just how far I should look into acts which aren't strictly related to domestic violence: it might be quite possible that the fear of a dissolution of the relationship and the resultant loss of property in a consensual union influences certain women in Ghana to not report cases of domestic violence or sexual assault. Does this mean that in trying to look at potential reasons why certain countries may be successful over others, I should look at variables which may not have a strict relation, and if so, how far should this examination go?
The rest of the week should be interesting. I want to go see court procedure for trials involving sexual assault - reading about it is informative but watching it first-hand will give me a better sense of what Canada attempts to employ. I also am currently reading something that looks at land divisions in Ghana along a gender perspective, and I'm trying to take notes on that with respect to both domestic violence and/or power imbalances, as well as the resultant health status of people in the region (per some work I want to do for Judy). I'm looking forward to the rest of this week! And hopefully, I'll sit down more tomorrow, since my legs are starting to grow sorer! But my head is spinning in a good way and I'm having a great time!
Until the next entry!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Toronto: Day 2
Well! Toronto is a neat city, though I was still a little tired from my flight here. Today I went downtown to see CCI at their office, which is really neat-looking inside: it's like a nicely made-over loft with all sorts of souvenirs from around the world. I spotted a calendar from Togo, a few South American crochet-type pictures, many colored cloths likely representing many different cultures, and I got to meet with Kataisee, my direct supervisor, which was very helpful.
I got my travel documents to Ghana. My flights, unlike my previous suspicions, will take me to Frankfurt! I will be passing through there, and Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, en route to Ghana. Thankfully, on the flight there I will not have to get out of the plane in Lagos, which is good because I have the suspicion I'd find a way to get lost in that airport (*not* a good idea).
I now have a better picture of what the remainder of my work in Toronto will look like. My work with METRAC in the following week looks like it is made up of the following 4 components:
1. Observing Ontario court (likely for procedure and trying to detect power dynamics, if it is court hearings concerning sexual assault or the like... the power dynamics between victim, perpetrator, and the gender composition of attendants in the room will be interesting to note, particularly if it seems like it ends up changing the outcome)
2. Meeting with legal aid groups (for further information on domestic violence in Toronto, and I suppose by extrapolation, urban Canada).
3. Meeting with various organizations for ideas on data intake, what variables to look for, and how to organize certain parameters due to priority with respect to domestic violence.
4. Conducting research in the Osgoode Hall law library (I suspect this is mostly concerning the comparative law paper I am going to be writing on Ghana's DVA).
Working with METRAC will be very interesting. METRAC was formed in the 1980s as a response to a spate of domestic violence incidences in the greater Toronto area. As a result, METRAC is a very front-line interventionist organization offering legal aid to battered women and children, policy research and critiques for government and public education seminars to encourage further discussion. However, in order to try and preserve a safe atmosphere for women to speak, METRAC limits its membership to strictly women, and so my work with them is unique. I am sure that METRAC and I will get along well, and hopefully my research skills will be of use to them. I will be very interested in seeing their reports on policy analysis, because I want to see what their criticisms are for Canadian law, and how that contrasts with the criticisms in places with established DVAs like Ghana, South Africa and Mauritius.
After that was filled with lots of sightseeing. I stumbled upon a nice cafe called Ravisoups (good wrap, though a bit bland at points in flavor; I feel the great side salad stole the show) and a great restaurant called Serra Ristorante (amazing squid ink fettucine di mare! Dessert coulda been more spectacular but was a solid good), and had a great walk around downtown. I have lots of photos from my walk but I think I'll just stick up this one:
Hmm... I wonder if it *is* up. Let's see... well, while I wrestle with that, take care! Until next time.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Toronto (the start of my trip)
Well, leg 1 of my trip to Africa is going well so far.
For those of you who are wondering, I'm going to Ghana to work with Canadian Crossroads International, WILDAF and the Ghanaian government to research the effects of the new Ghanaian Domestic Violence Act, social perceptions towards it, and to compare its results (and structure) to the legislation of other countries. I will be living with a family in Ghana for 5 months, which will be interesting and, I hope, a good experience. What I do know is that they live near my intended workplace (which is good because I've heard the traffic in Accra, the capital, is truly chaotic), and that my workplace is in a safer area of the city.
Right now, I'm in Toronto, writing from a bed&breakfast. The first leg of my trip involves staying in Toronto for a little over a week, getting familiar with WILDAF's Canadian counterpart METRAC (and completing some of my legal research over here), meeting with Crossroads and getting some further instruction, and... that's generally about it. This is my first time in Toronto and so I'll be looking around. Then, I'm off to Accra directly from Toronto.
However, my flight was at 7AM Vancouver time, and so I'm a bit too tired to really tour all that much today. I'll post up more as time goes on!
For those of you who are wondering, I'm going to Ghana to work with Canadian Crossroads International, WILDAF and the Ghanaian government to research the effects of the new Ghanaian Domestic Violence Act, social perceptions towards it, and to compare its results (and structure) to the legislation of other countries. I will be living with a family in Ghana for 5 months, which will be interesting and, I hope, a good experience. What I do know is that they live near my intended workplace (which is good because I've heard the traffic in Accra, the capital, is truly chaotic), and that my workplace is in a safer area of the city.
Right now, I'm in Toronto, writing from a bed&breakfast. The first leg of my trip involves staying in Toronto for a little over a week, getting familiar with WILDAF's Canadian counterpart METRAC (and completing some of my legal research over here), meeting with Crossroads and getting some further instruction, and... that's generally about it. This is my first time in Toronto and so I'll be looking around. Then, I'm off to Accra directly from Toronto.
However, my flight was at 7AM Vancouver time, and so I'm a bit too tired to really tour all that much today. I'll post up more as time goes on!
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