(Montreal) More and more Quebec lawyers want to adapt their practice to better support victims of domestic and sexual violence, says the adapted legal services organization Juripop after a full day of training organized on Friday. .
Posted at 2:26 p.m.
The non-profit organization held the very first Juri RDV on Friday, an event that aims to better equip lawyers in their support for victims of domestic violence. More than 150 lawyers and representatives of aid organizations were present to attend conferences and workshops on the reality of this violence.
According to the general manager of Juripop, Ms.e Sophie Gagnon, the first Juri RDV turned out to be a real success. She claims to have noted a “very strong commitment from all players” in the justice system, and indicates that the event will be back next year with a doubled capacity and an improved formula.
“We don’t have the feedback data yet, but what we heard was that it was really stimulating for the lawyers to see everyone gathered around the same objective, which is to better supervise and better represent the victims,” added Ms.e Justine Fortin, director of domestic and sexual violence programs at Juripop.
This event is part of the mandate entrusted to the organization by the Department of Justice, which seeks to facilitate the journey of victims through the Quebec justice system and to train lawyers in private practice on this issue.
“Crying Needs”
It was in 2020, at the dawn of the pandemic, that the Juripop team noticed a flagrant lack of training in domestic violence among lawyers. During the first wave of the pandemic, the organization had set up a telephone help line to offer legal advice related to the confinement and the rights to the safety of people living with an aggressor.
“We started to receive dozens and dozens of calls a day from people telling us about their needs at the intersection of family law and their experience of domestic violence. […] The questions turned out to be much more intrinsic to the reality of victims in family law courts, and that’s how we saw the crying needs,” says Ms.e Justine Fortin.
The report Rebuilding Trust, tabled in December 2020 by the Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, also formulated in its recommendations the need to “better support victims through the criminal justice system”.
These findings led to the creation of Juri RDV, which aims, among other things, to give lawyers “the desire to practice differently”, according to the director.
“In Quebec, one issue we have is that there is still a lot of misunderstanding of what domestic violence is. […] With Friday’s training, we have 150 lawyers who are now equipped with practical knowledge to better plead domestic violence and obtain judgments that will ensure the safety of women and children,” said Ms.e Gagnon.
The Juri RDV thus held various workshops to help lawyers adapt their practice to a more vulnerable clientele, in addition to showing them the correct formulations to use during legal proceedings. The participants were also made aware of the experiences of victims of domestic violence and the impact of these attacks on their children.
Although the event was a success, Ms.e Gagnon believes that there is still a long way to go before achieving the objectives of the mandate entrusted by the Department of Justice.
“The scope of knowledge to be acquired is very vast. A day is an excellent start, but there are subjects that we have only touched on or that we have not even been able to approach. It will take a lot more than a day to meet the needs and expectations of victims,” she admits.
To ensure the continuity of its mission, the Juripop organization offers a number of free and accessible online training contents, such as “Juri Podcasts”, which allow lawyers to learn about the issues they will encounter in their practice with victims of violence.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.