Immersion on a “perfect” journey through the justice system demonstrates—at every point in the documentary Witness CF — how the latter can be oppressive and, above all, disconnected from the realities experienced by the vast majority of victims, even if — individually — certain actors can sometimes be a source of comfort for some of them.
Nothing stuck out at Catherine Fournier.
Once his identity was made public, some people still reduced his testimony to its appearance, even questioning the validity of his process. This is why his fight is masterful: the label of “victim” (whether imposed or not) remains – in 2023 – an immense source of violence.
Once your story is known, it hardly belongs to you anymore. Choosing the parameters of his denunciation remains an immense privilege. Due to current laws, for many young people, it is imposed without any form of support or accompaniment. In small communities — where everyone knows each other — reporting while maintaining confidentiality is nearly impossible.
However, victims are still required to file a complaint where the assault took place. In many institutions – even today – denouncing has its share of consequences: the work disappears, mandates are withdrawn or one is forced to sign confidentiality agreements, under duress. When one has been historically marginalized and at the crossroads of different forms of oppression, the choice of silence is most often imposed. Ditto for people who are without status or who have experienced incest.
In the case of Catherine Fournier, all the stakeholders involved in her process (Juripop, CAVAC, SQ, DPCP) assured her — and repeated 1001 times — that her identity would be protected, and that is what convinced her to go forward. This dispossession is eloquent of the gap that remains between what is provided for in the Criminal Code and “real” life. Between what the laws claim to be able to do on paper and how they are interpreted and then applied on the ground. As long as the sociological (and human) dimension will be discarded in favor of the “rule of law”, we will continue to maintain a myth which is of the order of utopia: Specialized court or not.
Being a good “witness” or “a bad victim” is the other side of the same coin, because ultimately, this division aims to lose sight of the systemic nature of this violence. Claiming that all aggressors are systematically brought to justice promotes the culture of silence and impunity, because it makes invisible how many of them are at the head of our society and have full control of the various spheres of power. The silence of elected officials with regard to their peers, who sit as independents (or not) in all levels of government, is glaring. A “blue wall of silence” also exists in the police services, with dynamics comparable to those found in the army.
Even in the professional environment of lawyers, who are nevertheless well aware of the laws prohibiting this type of behavior, the reports which imply an approach to official authorities are “minimal compared to the violence which has actually taken place”. Only 1% of the men and women who answered the question on reporting wrongdoings reported them to the police or to the Syndic du Barreau.
Ultimately, it is not the fact of discussing difficult subjects that divides us, but the act of not talking about them openly. Where the idea that the judicial process would be restorative for all victims has been given the glimmer, hope has been created that is too often disappointed. Many come out more broken than when they entered.
Talking about it, both in the public square and in social networks, makes it possible to respond to attempts to compartmentalize and individualize these acts of violence. It is therefore no longer a question of a series of isolated acts; it rather exposes the continuity that exists between each act of sexual violence as well as the context of trivialization in which these acts are committed, even encouraged.
Like the various waves of denunciation that have hit Quebec in recent years, let’s hope that Catherine Fournier’s constructive criticism will flourish. His resistance gave us an appointment with History, whether we like it or not.