Winding down the Toronto leg...

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!