Let the justice system do its job
It’s easy to blame social media for elevating opinion over expertise. These platforms prize engagement — positive or negative — above careful thought, and most of us are all too happy to oblige with instant outrage.
No longer do we weigh verifiable facts and wait to hear from experts. We have thoughts, and we want to share them, preferably right away.
This tendency is especially evident in our insta-opinions on all aspects of the legal and correctional system. The break-in that brought Lindsay national attention for all the wrong reasons? We all knew immediately what was right and what was wrong in that case.
Except, of course, that we didn’t. Fortunately, some people with actual legal expertise, or who had done some research to understand and explain the Criminal Code, were willing to do the work the rest of us weren’t, work that inevitably results in a more thoughtful, nuanced view. (Shout-outs to Jason Ward and Alex McLeoad locally and Andrew Coyne in The Globe and Mail.)
The lesson, once again, is that it’s critical to make sure we understand the law and listen to those who have experience and knowledge in everything from policing to the courtroom to prisons and jails. There’s nothing wrong with a well-informed opinion, arrived at after careful consideration.
What’s especially disappointing is the example of political leaders who’d rather toss out a hot take rather than taking time to consider and understand.
Social media wasn’t at fault when Doug Ford mused earlier this year about ensuring Ontario’s judges were sufficiently tough on crime. Nor can it take the blame for various politicians spouting off about the transfer of Paul Bernardo from one correctional facility to another, the outcome of the trial of junior hockey players in London or any number of sentencing decisions.
It’s shocking that it needs to be stated at all, but political leaders need to hear it as much as the rest of us do. Our judges must be independent; politicians should never seek to exert pressure on decisions or appoint only judges who share their ideology. Our correctional officers need to be left alone to do their jobs; our elected officials should stay out of it.
Quick reactions and uninformed opinions are eroding trust in our institutions and undermining the authority of those with actual knowledge and experience. It’s an ugly reality, but one we have the power to stop. Because nowhere is it more dangerous than in our willingness to weigh in on aspects of the criminal justice system we know nothing about.
I don’t know if it is really fair to assume we all “know nothing about” the criminal justice system. Some of us have quite a bit of experience and not all of it from “the right side” of society’s’ tracks. Trust must be earned and, while I believe our Supreme Court makes pretty good independent rulings, sometimes lower court judges make bad decisions and, even with the protection of appeals courts, the justice system does not always get it right. In my role as a federal tribunal chair, I was required to read a lot of judgements and I remember one, with a chuckle, where the judge said to the lawyer arguing his/her/their case: “Oh I see you’ve quoted me as a precedent; that will help your case”. And who can forget the Hamilton judge who attended court wearing a MAGA hat? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/zabel-hat-decision-1.4285487 Both were trying to amuse but perhaps gave the public the wrong idea and created bias in doing so. While personally, I supported moving Bernardo to where he could get better services (I oppose the torture such offenders are subject to), I don’t agree Corrections gets it right all the time either. I think there is a huge need for reform in Corrections that politicians have a duty to play a role in. There is a fine line between advocating for justice system reform and exploiting sensational cases for votes but it’s a very blurry line and I think if we want to have access to not only all the facts but all the interpretations of the facts, we must err, if barely, on the side of free expression. What we badly need is public education (perhaps mandatory) in the practice of suspending judgement, weighing facts, making decisions and forming opinions based on probability, and being open to changing our views when new contradictory facts come to light. And I think we should teach that practice in the very lowest grades of education; I do not think knowledge of the mystery of life causes trauma but the opposite. I think teaching children how to judge from an early age will build confidence and curiosity about our world. I think everyone in public service, judges included, could do with better supervision and more frequent education updates too. Expecting our judges, Crown Attorneys, defence lawyers, politicians, and the general public to not be somewhat biased in our/their weighing of facts is unrealistic. In my view, our justice system is misnamed as it is more about maintaining order than it is about dispensing justice. The reason there is no peace in the world, after all, is because there is no justice. But in a well-ordered, civil society and a functioning democracy like Canada, while messy, the opportunity to work towards the just society we dream of is better than it is in all the other options.