Nearly two years after the Quebec became the first jurisdiction in the country to introduce an electronic tracking system to thwart intimate partner violence, the provincial government is now considering the possibility of remotely following offenders serving sentences in the community.
intimate partner violence
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Report recommends rights-based approach to tackle intimate partner violence and homelessness
The Quebec government should establish a comprehensive “made in Quebec” legal framework to tackle intimate partner violence by creating a specific right to adequate housing under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and introduce comprehensive legislation that institutes a right to be free from domestic violence that includes legal recourses in civil matters, according to a report by legal experts.
Successive governments in Quebec have made important strides to provide better support to victims of intimate partner violence but “the time has come” to establish necessary policy foundations for a rights-based approach that should be anchored by Quebec’s international human rights obligations, affirms the report. The expert panel calls on the provincial government to follow in the footsteps of the federal government’s 2019 National Housing Strategy Act and explicitly incorporate the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), a multilateral treaty signed by the United Nations General Assembly that came in force in 1976, in Quebec law.
“When you build your legal framework around a positive right, that’s going to change the entire approach,” remarked Pearl Eliadis, a McGill law professor and co-chair of the Gender Research Stream, one of several branches of the Québec Homelessness Prevention Policy Collaborative, that penned the report. The collaborative, founded in 2021, was established to advance policy reforms in Quebec to prevent homelessness. It is a joint effort between the McGill Department of Equity, Ethics, and Policy and the Old Brewery Mission, Quebec’s largest service provider for homeless men and the largest in Canada for homeless women.
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Taking a harder line against domestic violence
“During these incidents the offender punched the victim in the knees, hit her on the head and on her ears, pushed her, dragged her on the ground, slapped her, bit her, spat in her face, head-butted her, shook her, pulled her hair and grabbed her by the shoulders while threatening to throw her off a balcony. During one incident, he threw various objects at her. During another, he took a knife and threatened to remove the baby she was carrying in her womb.”
So described Court of Quebec Judge Alexandre Dalmau the horrors that former sports journalist Jonah Keri inflicted on his wife. Repeatedly. He was sentenced to 21 months of imprisonment.
The courts are beginning to take a harder line against domestic abuse. Over the past year Quebec Superior Court has awarded damages to victims of spousal abuse. Ontario Superior Court followed suit in late February 2022 after it recognized a new tort in family violence.
So too is the justice system and Quebec government, a movement that gained much traction over the past year, particularly since the beginning of the year.
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Quebec announces pilot projects for domestic and sexual violence specialized tribunal
The Quebec government is forging ahead with the deployment of a series of specialized sexual and domestic violence court pilot projects in spite of forceful opposition by the Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec, the tribunal that will manage and operate the new endeavour.
The Quebec government is launching five pilot projects in Quebec City, and the regions of Montérégie, Centre-du-Québec and Mauricie. The government selected districts based on a number of criteria, including “territorial and population realities”, the size of courthouses, the presence of community agencies working on sexual and domestic violence, and the presence of Aboriginal communities.
“The pilot projects will help to develop best practice and also to assess the impact of our specialised court model in different contexts,” said Quebec Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette in a press release.
Bill 92, An Act to create a court specialized in sexual violence and domestic violence and respecting training of judges in these matters, was unanimously adopted by the Quebec National Assembly in November 2022.
Bill 92, widely lauded by by family law experts and advocates against family and sexual violence, follows recommendations made by a report penned by former Court of Quebec Chief Justice Élizabeth Corte and Université Laval law professor Julie Desrosiers. The report, entitled “Rebuilding Trust,” called for a specialized tribunal that would take a different approach to deal with such cases.
Judicial institutions, such as specialized police units and specially trained teams of jurists, would work in tandem with social and community services to foster a victim-centered approach, without compromising the tenets of fundamental justice, told me Corte.
But current Chief Justice Louise Rondeau wants no part of the initiative. Instead, Justice Rondeau announced last fall the creation of a new divisional court dealing with conjugal and sexual complaints that is expected to be deployed early 2022.
“All these organizations do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Court,” said Justice Rondeau. “One must veer away from this perception that is emerging in society of a specialized tribunal that may have links with the way that police intervene, with the way that the Crown organizes the work of its prosecutors, with the way that community organizations provide psycho-social assistance. These measures have nothing to do with the courts. The Court is a different organization, independent.”
The government did not however announce when the pilot projects will be launched.
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Questions remain over Quebec’s GPS electronic tracking project for domestic violence offenders
Barely a month after a Quebec coroner recommended that people convicted of murdering their partners be compelled to wear electronic tracking devices when released from prison, the provincial government announced that some conjugal violence offenders could be ordered to wear tracking bracelets beginning next spring.
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Little awareness by judges over heightened risks of domestic violence during pandemic, asserts study
Canadian judges have demonstrated very little awareness over the heightened risks of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, a situation that should prompt judges to attend comprehensive legal training over what the United Nations has described as the “shadow pandemic,” according to human rights and legal aid experts.