Madam Speaker, I will now resume my comments on the Reform Party's motion. I was talking about damage and compensation suits that fall under the jurisdiction of civil courts.
Several provinces have programs to compensate victims of crime. Provincial and federal legislation on this is still inadequate, I agree, but let us at least be honest in our remarks.
We all know that the judge in a criminal trial is not there to pass the sentence desired by the victim.
Madam Speaker, I would ask the two hon. members to my right to maybe move to the back if they want to talk to each other. Thank you.
As I was saying, we all know that the judge in a criminal trial is not there to impose the sentence we or the victim would like to hear but one that he deems fair and acceptable taking into account social standards and the circumstances of the case.
That a victim or his or her loved ones are dissatisfied with the accused's acquittal or shocked by a light sentence is understandable. Many people see a criminal trial as legitimate revenge on a thief or an assailant. They identify with one side of the criminal trial and see themselves as prosecutors. For these people, the trial is a game between themselves and the accused. We must correct this mistake and not reinforce it through comments such as those made in today's debate.
We must tell Canadians that the criminal justice system is adversarial. We have the public prosecutor on one side, the accused on the other, and the judge in the middle. And they all get together to decide if the evidence supporting the charge against the accused is conclusive.
The victim is a witness, not a party at the trial. That is where it would be appropriate, in my opinion, to suggest major changes to the spirit of the Criminal Code and to court proceedings. That is what the Reform Party should say if it is sincere in its motion.
Either the system remains as designed and victims continue to play the role of ordinary witnesses at trials, or the victim becomes a party in the proceedings. That is the true problem: victims as witnesses or as parties at the trial.
I am convinced that we will not start a real debate on improving the lot of victims before the courts unless we make a radical choice between these two conceptions of the criminal justice system. Either the criminal trial remains a judicial inquiry where evidence is presented against the accused, whom a judge or a jury must find guilty or acquit after hearing the defence.
Traditionally, the two opposing parties are the public prosecutor and the accused. Each party calls its witnesses who, in principle, are total strangers and independent in the case.
In this system, the victim must testify on the events he or she experienced, mainly to identify the accused as the one who committed the crime.
Once the evidence is presented, the accused is found guilty only if there is no reasonable doubt about the essential facts
with which he is charged. That is our system. In most cases, it works when the evidence is conclusive.
There is an alternative to this system which has reached its limits. We could now allow the victim to be a civil party in a criminal trial. If I understand what is behind the concerns expressed by the Reform Party, I believe that such a proposal would win immediate support from most of the public. I can very well imagine a victim participating actively in a criminal trial in support of the accusation, making representations on the sentence and demanding full monetary compensation for the material and physical damage suffered.
In France, for example, the victim can be a civil party for such purposes and I do not see why we could not amend our criminal legislation to permit an active presence of all interested parties in a trial.
The victim could be represented by lawyers, produce his or her own witnesses, question and cross-examine those brought by the Crown and by the defence, plead on the evidence presented, suggest the sentence or take part in negotiations; in short, participate in the whole judicial process and even appeal any judgement.
We found out the wording of the Reform Party's motion only late yesterday afternoon. I would have liked a little more research on the subject of the motion, but I excuse the Reform Party because I believe that the motion was improvised and made up just hours before. We will agree that it only conveys a vague criticism of the whole judicial system and of the underlying legislation.
Still, I must admit that this slapdash motion gives us an opportunity to propose a major change in the spirit of criminal law to the government. I believe that the victim cannot be a mere passive witness outside the proceedings in which he or she should be a full participant, like the accused.
I think that if people feel that criminals are better treated than their victims by the courts, this perception is largely due to their exclusion from the proceedings.