It seems that there would be a “backlash”, five years after the wave of #metoo denunciations. That contrary winds would blow.
This is not what I observe, and the best example is the guilty verdict pronounced against former MP Harold LeBel this week in Rimouski.
This case is exactly the kind of one that only yesterday did not give rise to any criminal charges. And if by impossible an accusation was brought, the reasonable doubt generally swept it away.
We would have insisted on the ambiguity of the situation: a young woman is going to sleep in the deputy’s apartment. Agrees to sleep by his side after he tries to kiss her. Remains “frozen” while he makes sexual contact with her. Don’t try to run away or lock yourself in the bathroom. Complaint three years later.
In short, all the stereotypes that have always been used to attack the credibility of victims of sexual assault and sow doubt were at hand.
It worked really well, and having spent the 1990s in courthouses, I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a conviction in a similar case.
Let us add that the accused is a deputy, and not the least. Very popular in the National Assembly as in the Parti Québécois at the time, affable, sympathetic. Here he is, by choice, in front of his fellow citizens of Rimouski.
Not so long ago, we would have heard authoritative arguments such as: “See if a man like Mr. LeBel would risk his reputation by such acts!” »
And it often worked.
What was mostly seen was a sort of role reversal, where the morality of the complainant was questioned and used to “nullify” any claim of assault.
In a more or less subtle way, and often not at all, the victim was said to have been provocative, had implicitly consented, had accepted the sexual consequences of things. Besides, she didn’t bear any signs of violence… In addition, she took three years to go and see the police!
All that false reasoning, all that rusty hardware of defense attorneys doesn’t work anymore.
The very simple, very frank testimony of a woman who explains her inability to defend herself against a colossus who fiddles with her in bed, her fear, her feeling of being trapped, then her immense hesitation to file a complaint: all that is no longer automatically judged “unbelievable”. On the contrary, the public discussion on assaults and sexual misconduct, the numerous speeches of victims have shown as very “normal” behaviors often considered suspicious or incomprehensible.
I’m not saying that in a truly fair justice system, all charges should necessarily result in a conviction. Or that a conviction is necessarily the “proof” of the proper functioning of the system. Systems where the state wins all cases are obviously not liberal democracies.
Nor am I saying that the legal route is the only one for victims of assault or misconduct. It is among other things because the #metoo movement (and others well before it) freed the voice of victims in the media and in the public space that the discussion has progressed, and that the judicial system is updating. . However, it is not participating in a “backlash” against the victims to identify its limits and dangers. The slogan “We believe you” does not only do justice to the silent victims. Taken literally, it prohibits any verification, any questioning, in short, it also opens the door to false accusations and other injustices. You don’t need to have frequented the courtrooms much to imagine that the witnesses are systematically angelic, always tell the truth, never make mistakes, do not exaggerate and are always animated by good feelings.
So we inevitably and fundamentally come back to the need for a justice system in which victims can trust that they will be heard respectfully. And where the rights of the accused are protected.
And what I read in the LeBel verdict is that our system has moved in the right direction.
That the ambient noise of prejudice has radically diminished in judicial reasoning. That we hear more clearly the testimonies of the plaintiffs for what they are.
This woman simply presented a credible account of the facts, which embarrassed text messages from the defendant seemed to confirm. On the contrary, it is the version of the accused which did not hold water, to the point of not even raising a reasonable doubt.
If we wanted to measure the progress made in the judicial world over the past 40 years in terms of sexual crimes, we would have to take this trial as a point of comparison. In this sense, it has a symbolic aspect.