When punishing is not enough | From sentence to reparation?

Sometimes judgment is not enough. A guilty verdict is not enough. It takes more: repair or, at the very least, discussion. A face-to-face, downright. Yes, it can.

Silvia Galipeau
The Press

When punishment is not enough, a powerful documentary by Pauline Voisard, on tour across Quebec this Tuesday, tackles an unknown aspect of justice, both complementary and alternative, which would benefit from making itself known. Namely: restorative justice.

What’s this ? Both a “tone”, a “manner” and an “accompanying posture”. Guided by a mediator, restorative justice gives (obviously on a voluntary basis) the opportunity for a victim and an accused to talk to each other. One in front of the other. At the same table.

If the idea makes you shudder, know that for some, it can also do the most good.

This is what we remember from the film, which follows on from The perfect victim Where I salute you bitch, two documentaries denouncing in their own way this lack of voice for victims in our traditional justice system, precisely. Where are they, the victims? How can they be heard?

“I wanted to show an option, explains the director in an interview. It’s an option […] not the panacea […], but an option where people try to open the dialogue. It’s possible. »

Shot with modesty and aesthetics (and several close-ups on nature, a body of water here, a moon there, to allow the viewer to breathe, the subject is rather heavy, after all), When punishment is not enough gives, and for an hour, the microphone to several mediators, but also to all the parties of different crimes committed: a woman and the murderer of her father, a young girl and her aggressor father, an offender and his victim.

“For some victims, having a judge declare the accused guilty is not satisfactory. What they want is to hear the accused say: I shouldn’t have…”, also says a mediator on the screen from the outset.

No, it doesn’t always go well. Some give up. Not everyone reconciles in the end. Nevertheless. Imagine being in the place of this young woman who, after a long work that spanned years, ended up meeting her father’s murderer. She wanted answers. She finally came out of the exercise with an observation (and you have to hear her say it on camera): “For me, he was just a murderer. […] But when I came out […], he was a human being. »

“It’s my perception, comments Pauline Voisard, but I think we tend to categorize people. »

To complete her documentary, she worked for three years with several mediators and their “protagonists”, as she calls them, to gain their trust, to be authorized to film them (with chosen framing, modified voices, even a few reconstructions), to offer here a unique and privileged foray into the front row of this alternative justice.

“The people I met, she explains, told me that they had the impression of being heard, of expressing themselves in a safe environment, on both sides. […] And the fact that they were able to speak directly to the person meant that they could, without forgetting or forgiving, of course, turn the page. It is a step in a long journey. »

Pauline Voisard, to whom we owe a whole filmography of committed documentaries, offers here a touching film, disconcertingly human, which clashes with the rather polarized ambient tone. “Me, what I like in my films is the spirit of the journey of small steps, she concludes. There are no exploits in life, no miracles, just hard work. And to see that there are people who are ready for that fascinates me. […] This kind of obstacle course. Open doors to live better. […] Because if we don’t think that people can walk through life, what happens to our justice system? »

When punishment is not enough premiered in Trois-Rivières on October 11. Several screenings and discussions are then planned across Quebec, notably on October 19 at the Cinémathèque, then on October 27 at the Cinéma Beaubien.

The film will also be broadcast on November 26 at 10:30 p.m. on ICI Télé (on the show Doc Humanity).