A while ago, while researching a paper for work I ran across a paper that quoted an Irish judge named MacKenna, in which he discussed the task of weighing evidence. It stuck with me.
"This is how I go about the business of finding facts. I start from the undisputed facts which both sides accept. I add to them such other facts as seem very likely to be true, as, for example, those recorded in contemporary documents or spoken to by independent witnesses like the policeman giving evidence in a running down case about the marks on the road. I judge a witness to be unreliable if his evidence is, in any serious respect, inconsistent with these undisputed or indisputable facts, or of course if he contradicts himself on important points. I rely as little as possible on such deceptive matters as his demeanour. When I have done my best to separate the true from the false by these more or less objective tests, I say which story seems to be the more probable, the plaintiff's or the defendant's."
Like most Canadians with an internet connection and a Facebook page, I learned of Ghomeshi's termination from CBC last Sunday morning. I was on vacation in New England. First I read his side of the story, which had appeared in my newsfeed. When I met up with a Canadian at lunch, I asked if she "knew about Jian" Ghomeshi. She didn't. I explained what I had read, and immediately blurted out my problem with it. Which was that the CBC, that ever liberal bastion, would fire one of their beloved and income-generating stars for engaging in sexual activities described as milder than 50 Shades of Grey, a bit of fan fiction that was just risque enough to be wildly popular with millions of soccer moms. To be milder than that, would really just be sex, and we're taking about the CBC.
In the context of Justice MacKenna's quote, Ghomeshi contradicted himself with his own testimony. It didn't fit with the facts, which was that CBC terminated him based on information that made it impossible for him to remain in their employ. When I read the Toronto Star account of the story later that day, with the independent accounts of the four women he abused, it pointed to a far more compelling reason for his termination from CBC. As time passed, the number of abused women increased to nine.
It's like that old proverb, if one man calls you an ass, consider it. If five people call you an ass, buy a saddle.
If nine women independently come forward with remarkably similar accounts of you of being a sexual predator, you are a sexual predator.
In the beginning, Ghomeshi had staunch supporters. He had less supporters after the Star article broke, and less still as more women came forward. Several articles were published on the steady decline of "likes" on Ghomeshi's Facebook page. They gave hourly ratios. His new PR team dumped him. His old PR team dumped him too. The tide of public support as expressed through social media shifted to the women. There are some who remain unwavering in their support of Ghomeshi, but it is a definite minority. The problem with blind faith is that it is blind, look no further than Ford Nation for proof of that.
There are also those who are stalwart supporters of the justice system as the only determinate of guilt. For them, that the women didn't go immediately to the police and file reports means it probably didn't happen, or it maybe it wasn't that bad, or maybe they just changed their minds afterwards. If there is a silver lining to be had in this black and white view of justice, it is that the people who believe this are most likely people who have never been sexually assaulted. The people who have, well they know exactly why those women didn't report it.
The justice system is especially cruel to victims of sexual assault. In particular, when it comes to victims of sexual assault by people with power, whether the powerful be employees in residential schools, Christian brothers in orphanages, a wealthy celebrity, or a former premier of Nova Scotia, whose list of accusers spanned more than 30 women and four decades, all with similar accounts of being attacked.
"...nearly three dozen women – babysitters, job seekers, law clients, party workers, journalists, a legislative page, even an oil company executive – most of whom did not even know the others existed, had all told police remarkably similar stories about how Regan had attacked them. Silently. Without preliminaries. Pawed them. Groped them. Stuck his tongue down their throats. Sometimes more. And then, when it was over, acted as if nothing had happened."
In 2002, after a nine year battle, Nova Scotia prosecution services announced that they would not proceed on eight remaining sexual assault charges against Gerald Regan, former premier and federal cabinet minister. The Crown gave the age of the allegations, the cost to go forward, and the age of the defendant as reasons not to go forward.
I was studying public relations when the Regan decision was announced 12 years ago. At that time, social media was largely conceptual. I learned about it in school, but I didn't understand it. News stories were still read on once-a-day newsprint and user-generated content was limited to call in radio shows and letters to the editors. That April day Regan and his high-priced lawyer declared vindication on all charges, and 30 women lost to Regan all over again. After a few days of reporting, life went on.
If it wasn't for a recent comment I read on a news story about Ghomeshi, I wouldn't have remembered the Regan case. It is an eerily similar story of sexual predation by a person in a position of power that went on for years. Back then, there was no medium for people to express collective outrage; no way to sustain that outrage. Today, we have the medium. In the last 12 years, I've watched social media evolve from a theoretical concept to a mechanism capable of influencing world events.
With it, can the Nine of 2014 achieve the legal justice the Thirty of 2002 were denied?
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