Senator Brazeau's arrest and jailing dominated the news this week. However, thousands of Canadians who have been through even the most minor domestic violence incident know that criminal law is applied with no mercy and no balance, well before anyone gets their day in court.
And, let me be clear: family violence is wrong. It has no place in the Canadian family where it frequently damages children for life.
Senator Brazeau and the unnamed woman are caught up in a situation where family law ends and criminal law begins. As soon as assault charges (let alone sexual assault charges) become part of the picture, the police have no wiggle room. As soon as family violence is invoked, the police must act.
Fair enough. But what about false allegations used as ploys to get the other spouse out of the house, and mount a campaign of parental alienation? This does happen; during my 19 years of practice in family law, I have seen it far too often.
As soon as one party accuses the other of physical violence, whether the accusation is made two minutes later on a 9-1-1 call or five years later, the police have no discretion within Canada's legal system. They must arrest the person accused, take the accused to jail, and present a case for charges to be laid.
After the accused is charged, he (or she) must stay away from the matrimonial home, and stay away from the other spouse.
The couple are now not allowed to speak directly to each other, and must hire separate lawyers. This also means reconciliation is much more difficult.
If the accused travels to the U.S. or overseas on routine business, those trips won't be possible either because the accused is not allowed out of Canada. The accusation is now interfering with the ability to earn a living. The accused needs to find a new residence -- an added expense.
In Ontario, family law lawyers and criminal lawyers both refer to Shaw v Shaw, a precedent case before Justice Pugsley. In this instance, Mrs. Shaw was the accused. The father immediately moved for sole custody and significantly restricted the mother's access to the children.
As Justice Pugsley points out, the problem with the criminal justice system is that the Attorney General implemented a zero tolerance policy about domestic assault several years ago. This means that, however minor an assault may be, police are required to charge people and the Crown Attorneys are required to proceed in due course. This process tears apart families and fails to serve the best interests of children.
As these accusations and criminal charges are playing out in the court of public opinion, the privacy that should surround family law is non-existent.
While Senator Brazeau is the man in the spotlight, thousands of other Canadian men and women accused of a range of domestic violence have suffered the same punishments and the same obstacles to reconciliation while waiting for criminal courts to make decisions, truly harming the best interests of children, who keep asking "Where is daddy?" or worse, see their parent in jail on television.
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However having had a similar situation happen, I ended up feeling like a victim of the court, because what I wanted didn't matter. I didn't want the guy charged because he lived in a different area and charging him (and subsequently jailing him) resulted in him having to stay in the same city. I was glad enough to just be away from him and never see him again. Instead, I had to go to court and see him at least three times. If I didn't go to court, I was charged with contempt. I ended up moving away myself because I didn't know what would happen if he got out early.
Of course there are false accusations made in these types of cases, but statistically, no more than any other crime.
Yet EVERY SINGLE TIME a woman is raped, some "expert" feels the need to point out the fact that she might be lying.
Gee, i wonder why women don't report rape more often? So fun to be utterly humiliated and then have jerks who don't know you call you a liar.
In the majority of spousal abuse cases, they don't make the papers and there is more opportunity for the civil and court processes to deal with the incident unfettered by media reporting.
In this case, the PM and his PMO spin doctors seized upon the incident to fan the flames of public contempt and pronounce the senator guilty in the court of public opinion.
There have been many government officials charged with criminal offenses and the head politician invariably states that the matter is before the courts and issues "no comment" on the incident.
Harper clearly commented publicly on the incident in order to fan the flames of public contempt of the person charged thereby preempting the public opinion from laying blame on his dubious appointment of this person to the Senate in the first place.
Now, if the issue results in a trial, the defense lawyer is confronted with Harper's public statement influencing the trail process.
Someone tell my family doctor, Rob Kamermans of Coe Hill, Ontario about injustice. Asset seizures, forbidden to practice medicine at Emergency Room hospitals or to make an income all for the alleged signing of medical marijuana permission forms. Most dangerous grandfather in canada and his RN wife won't be able to pay for heat and hydro at their clinic as the noose of injustice extends its claws and strangles the medical access of a community.
He is evading child support for his disabled 11 year old son, think about that when you talk about what a poor guy mr. Kamermans is.
It appears you feel violence in a household with children presence is wrong, but a house hold without is acceptable? With 19 years in family law you would have learned that for every "false" allegation of abuse in a partnership there are many more 'true' or founded cases presented in court, with the majority going unreported.
Senator Brazeau is in the news at the moment for a rash of other issues, the fact that he was charged with assault and sexual assault is one of his many problems.
So yeah, if you take the watered down White Knight Attorney General approach, there probably is a lot of unreported abuse. Just that...well....it isn't really abuse.
In a way, there is no way to prove how many false versus valid allegations there are. The White Knights and feminist rally around the mantra that a man should be viewed as an abuser just because she says so. Doesn't need proof, just lying testimony. Just because a judge convicts or grants an order doesn't make it true, again citing the AG's directive.
This law and directive is an affront to justice and the constitution.