This true story takes place in Switzerland. To use the established expression, it could have happened anywhere.
A man convicted of rape is initially sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
Outcry
The country’s highest court, however, decided to reduce the sentence because the rape in question had been of “short duration”, exactly eleven minutes, it seems.
The sentence would now be three years, with eighteen months suspended.
Outcry obviously, because the Swiss have not yet completely dismissed common sense and morality.
You will easily find other judgments of the same ilk in various societies.
You don’t need a doctorate to understand the message that this kind of decision sends to victims, even if it is undeniable that the justice system, on the whole, takes these cases more seriously than in the past.
I can understand that a defense lawyer multiplies more or less convincing arguments to defend his client in a rape case: duration of the act, domination play rather than aggression, ambiguous signals sent by the victim, past behavior , his word against that of my client, absence of witnesses, etc.
But we are talking here about the judgment rendered, not the defense’s argument.
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We are also talking about a judgment rendered by the highest court in the country, and not an aberrant judgment rendered by a lower court and expected to be overturned.
Forgive my naivety, but I had the impression that the highest authorities should tend to render judgments of greater quality, greater wisdom, greater probity.
After all, if these illustrious people have reached this height…
I will rightly be told that these absurd and shocking judgments are the exception.
True, but it is the same for them as for dishes in a restaurant: a single hair on a single plate casts doubt on the entire menu and the entire establishment.
CNEWS revealed last week that more than one in two French people (51%) say they do not trust their country’s justice system, particularly when it comes to sentencing.
I don’t have figures for ours, but I don’t see why it would be so much better.
Trust
We often and rightly note that the tone is rising in our societies. We insult each other more and listen to each other less.
Particularly targeted are elected officials, the media, the justice system, the large institutions which are the foundations of our societies.
If the tone rises, it means that confidence is falling, that seems pretty clear to me.
An ill-advised gesture or comment, a shocking decision, and our institutions fuel this distrust.
This distrust is then exploited by demagogues, who will pose as messiahs who have come to save the people, who will rush to weaken the institutions even further.
And this is how societies regress.