Editorial
Unless you’ve been there, the ability to fathom what it feels like to lose a child in a senseless accident and then try to find the patience for justice through a sloth-like legal system is heart-wrenching.
The wheels turn very slowly, like a fruit fly in a bowl of dark molasses, an unmerciful pit with no overhanging branches to grab onto. It’s a frustrating scenario that countless people find themselves wrapped up in as they navigate the many twists and turns.
Meanwhile, in many cases, the accused is free to roam the streets, free to carry on life as before, which is a hard pill to swallow for the victims’ families. But that’s the way the legal system operates in Canada — innocent until proven guilty, which is a fair and solid foundation of any organization.
Unless the accused is a flight risk or charged with the most heinous of crimes, they cannot legally be detained while awaiting trial, however, there may be conditions to their release.
Unlike in the old days, you can’t fast-track justice and have sentencing carried out by dinner time. Presuming guilt undermines the legal system and shakes its foundation to the core, but on the other hand, society has seen countless examples why faith in the system has been seriously eroded courtesy of lenient sentences with little or no deterrence factor.
Everyone has a right to a fair trial regardless of the charges against them. Unfortunately, countless individuals over the millennium never had fair trials, especially if they were accused of witchcraft.
People tend to forget there is always another side to the story. It’s rarely cut and dry or black and white because there are often unseen circumstances that must be considered.
Evidence, reports, eye-witness accounts, test results . . . all must be gathered and carefully packaged and presented to a system that is already burdened and backlogged. In other words, holding your breath in court is not a good idea; you will pass out before anything concrete happens. That’s why patience is truly a virtue in dealing with the legal system —you really have no other choice but to trust that justice will be served in the end.
Lyonel Doherty, editor
