Here we go again. Another tragedy involving someone else’s life.
No worries.
As long as it’s someone media-depicted as a loser up to no good. Someone else, like David Millgaard or Guy-Paul Morin. Or Donald Marshall. And now Kyle Unger.
This man just spent fourteen years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Bad enough, but before he’s even got to his feet, before his lawyer has even phrased his intention to seek redress on behalf of his client, Manitoba’s Minister of Justice leaps up and pronounces there will be neither compensation nor inquiry for this judicial rape of an innocent man.
Isn’t Manitoba supposed to have a bigger social conscience than other provinces?
Remember, these dreadful miscarriages come to our attention only because of the brutal murders which spawned them. Doubtless there are thousands more in prison for less cringeworthy crimes they didn’t commit, or had their lives wrecked by suicide, depression and alienation.
On reading public-record accounts of such trials and retrials, the spectre of false accusation is ever present. Not only by police and prosecutors, but in relatively recent times it seems everyone in Canada now feels entitled to lay accusations, usually in a secretive and cowardly fashion, mostly against people they don’t like. Corporations, universities and a host of public service organisations are awash in stories of harassment, abuse and dishonesty.
Why can such malicious accusations be made with impunity, the victim’s only recourse in civil litigation which requires pitbull-tenacity and deep pockets, IF he can find a lawyer willing to take him on?
Why isn’t the accusation itself subject to prosecution when it is found false?
Granted, this presents an element of closing the barn-door after the horse has bolted, but a person falsely accused would at least have somewhere to turn…
My greatest wish for our Charter of Rights to be amended so that all of us can live free from false accusation. The Charter isn’t a fossilised parchment, it is a living protection which can surely be amended when a need becomes crucial, and that time is now.
We have imprisoned thousands of innocent people based on accusations which were found later to be anywhere between malicious, opportune and plain incompetent. That is, in the tiny number where the facts came to light.
We must do all we can to put a stop to it.
I do so agree with you.
It’s a travesty and a shame. A black stain on the escutcheon of this country.
It proves conclusively that the NDP in Manitoba are on the same or even on a lower level than the federal Conservatives, who are, no doubt praising this unacceptable decision.