Sometimes a column idea just don’t work out and you’re left with scrabbling something together, such as writing about the writing process.
Often a column starts out with just a germ of an idea. This one began with a rerun of Murdoch Mysteries. The episode featured the coroner, Dr. Julia Ogden, being jailed for teaching poor women about contraception. Imagine living in a time when contraception was illegal, but I digress.
Digressing in a column, which is essentially itself a digression feels like a new low in filling editorial space, but I digress... again.
Anyway, the episode got me thinking about privilege in the justice system. It was on TV around the same time I did a story about a white woman who received a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to assaulting another woman at a local watering hole.
There was a certain amount of outrage in the community over that. People cried privilege and money, but, but ultimately it was a just sentence. This is someone who had no criminal record and, as assaults go, it was about as low on the scale as it gets, a slap and a hair pull with an early guilty plea. I would have been surprised if the sentence would have been anything else (in fact, I predicted it).
Anyway, it was not a case of privilege. The Criminal Code is pretty clear. Judges are obligated to consider “all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances should be considered for all offenders.”
Furthermore, the Code states, the Court “may, if it considers it to be in the best interests of the accused and not contrary to the public interest, instead of convicting the accused, by order direct that the accused be discharged absolutely or on the conditions prescribed in a probation order made under subsection 731(2).”
Obviously, for a first-time offender, it is in her best interest not to wind up with a criminal record, so it becomes a matter of whether the discharge is contrary to the public interest.
In this case, that was pretty easy for the judge to justify. The circumstances certainly did not indicate a danger to the general public and denunciation and deterrence is achieved by probation.
Now, you have to admit that was a masterful digression considering I was talking about a TV show.
Unlike the local case, Dr. Ogden’s treatment was definitely privilege. Her boyfriend, police detective William Murdoch lets her go with the blessing of his inspector.
It got me thinking about whether privilege sometimes benefits the system. Is it not sometimes because of provilege that unjust laws get changed. Dr. Henry Morgentaler comes to mind. Was it not at least partially because he was a respected physician and had money to fight the system that women’s rights were measurably advanced? Did privilege there not result in necessary change.
Those were some of the questions that the germ of the idea raised. I do not voice opinions, however, without evidence. In this case, my research simply did not turn up supporting evidence. I started questioning my questions. Is it not simply a matter of the justice system working the way it is supposed to work?.
That is not to say people with money do not sometimes have an advantage. Everybody is entitled to an able defence, but some defences are more able than others. I am not saying that justice is not blind, but judges can only weigh what is put on the scales. That is reality.
The same applies to health care. It is supposed to be universal. It is supposed to be one-tier. Access is supposed to be based on need, not ability to pay. It is not anymore. Perhaps it never was.
But I digress.
