(Quebec) A first series of districts in which the pilot projects of specialized courts for sexual violence and domestic violence will be deployed is announced on Wednesday.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Quebec, Simon Jolin-Barrette specifies that the first five districts selected are those of Quebec, Beauharnois and Bedford, in Montérégie, Drummond in the Centre-du-Québec region and Saint-Maurice, in Mauricie. .
Last November, MPs from all political parties unanimously adopted Bill 92 creating this specialized tribunal.
Minister Jolin-Barrette then explained that he could not accept that victims hesitate to denounce and use legal remedies. He then promised them that they would be accompanied from beginning to end, at all stages of the legal process and even beyond.
He had pointed out that Quebec was becoming the first jurisdiction in the world to deploy a court specializing in matters of sexual violence and domestic violence.
The government believes that the pilot projects will make it possible to develop best practices and assess the impact of the specialized court model in different contexts.
The government ensures that the establishment of the specialized court does not change the applicable law. Procedural guarantees and the rights of the accused, including the presumption of innocence, remain.
When the creation of the court was announced in November, the Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec, Lucie Rondeau, considered that it was an unacceptable political intrusion in the judicial field. The Court of Quebec has also announced the creation of the Accusations in a Conjugal and Sexual Context (ACCES) division, which essentially has the same objectives as the new specialized court.
The choice of districts concerned by the pilot projects was made based on territorial and population realities, diversity in terms of the size of courthouses, the presence of community organizations working in the area of sexual violence and violence marriage in the territory and the presence of Aboriginal communities.