Thoughts On Publication Bans

Colby Cosh has posted an interesting item on his blog, concerning a ban on publishing the identity of an accused in the case of a child's murder.

Let me begin by making my opinion clear: this is a preposterous perversion of the intent of these regulations, put in place to protect a child and now protecting the child's murderer. There is absolutely no benefit to the child in keeping his/her identity a secret - there can be no stigma attached to it's future, because it has none. The people who write these regulations really need to give their heads a shake, and rethink this, and make the necessary changes to ensure this doesn't happen again. Protecting the privacy of a dead child benefits no one except the perpetrator (should he be found guilty).

The trend in Canadian courts in the past decade or so (since Karla Homolka's trial, really) is to try to protect the victims and their families by keeping the more prurient aspects of the case away from the greater public by using publication bans. This is a lovely sentiment, but it is contrary to the course of justice.

When a crime is committed, it is not only the victim who has been abused, but the whole of society. We put laws in place for the safety and security of us all. The full weight of the coercive power of the state is used to investigate crime and prosecute the accused. For this reason, special legal procedures are observed to ensure that the accused rights have been fully observed. It needs to been shown to the public that justice, from both society's and the accused's standpoints, has been done.

For this reason, court cases are public procedings. The facts entered into evidence are public knowledge. A publication ban doesn't change this, it merely prevents the greater public from access to knowledge that it would be privy to if it had access to the courtroom. The public nature of a trial is unfortunate from the viewpoint of the victims, their friends and families, but it is necessary if justice is to be seen to be done. The knee-jerk use of publication bans is contrary to this principle.

Please note too that the courts have no problem with the pre-trial publication of details about the accused if the victim is an adult, even though a core tenet of the law is that an accused is innocent until proven guilty. A stock broker charged with fraud, for instance, has a stain on his reputation that he can never be free from, regardless of whether he's found guilty or not. But it is in the public's interest to know who he is, as part of the course of justice.

Crimes committed against children by their parents or legal guardians are among the worst crimes that a person can commit - the violation of society's most helpless by those they are supposed to trust the most. It is a perverse and ironic twist that a person convicted of such a crime has more anonymity than those found not guilty of lesser offences.

Reflecting On Arafat and The Nobel Peace Prize

When (if) in a hundred years the Palestinian Arabs have their own country, and a stable enough civil society to allow for the honest reflection on the history of how their nation came into being and how things were before that happened, do you think Arafat's Peace Prize will be a source of national pride or embarassment?

Thanks, Fox

Just like to take a moment to thank the purveyors of some of the crappiest TV fare ever for keeping their track record of blinkered disregard for the truly classic by cancelling Arrested Development. First Firefly, now this. Freakin' pathetic.

I Have To Quote This One Entirely

From Volokh:

There's a Reason That We Put Breaks Between Words: Check out whorepresents.com, expertsexchange.com, penisland.net, therapistfinder.com, and molestationnursery.com. Thanks to John Morris for finding these.

Pushback Distillate Revealed to Anxious Thronging Masses

Jeff at protein wisdom has a long post quoting Cheney which neatly sums up the entire pushback argument. Here is what I believe to be the key paragraph, for easy future reference to this historic period of the second Bush II administration:

Clearly, the important administration arguments are beginning to coalesce: 1) Criticism of the war is not by itself unpatriotic 2) Similarly, answering anti-war critics is not challenging their patriotism 3) But opportunistic and cynical anti-war critics who are trying to walk back their own votes and level spurious charges at the Administration (they lied to take is into war) are themselves lying 4) These lies are hurting the country and the troops. 5) The burden of proof, in a post 911 world, was on Saddam Hussein to prove he’d disarmed; we could not wait for the threat to become imminent before acting 6) The cause the troops are fighting for is just and right 7) Iraq is moving toward freedom; and things on the ground are improving daily, regardless of what the MSM and prominent Dems would have us believe.

Awesome

I wish I could go.

(In case the link is dead by the time you read this, Jimmy Carter is being protested by Americans of Ethiopian descent for his involvement in the recent Ethiopian elections, which they consider to have been rigged under his nose. They're following him around, harrassing him on his book tour. Well done, people!)

Gomery, And Then Some

I haven't been active much this year in blogging, because I've been scouring (is that the right word?) a couple of different political forums under an unclever little pseudonym that I won't reveal here (for the moment anyway).

Anyhoo, it occurred to me this morning over coffee that 40 years (give or take, if you consider the Mulroney era Progressive Conservatives to have been Liberals in blue suits, as I do) of Liberal corruption may be actually helping the Liberals in their time of need.

There has been so little competition in the marketplace of political ideas in Canada, and each successive government has so closely resembled the last in terms of approach to policy making and stated ideals, that the Canadian electorate has been conditioned to accept the fact that all parties and all politicians are the same.

The upshot is that the Conservatives (and NDP and Communist and Rhino and Marijuana Parties) face an uphill battle convincing the public that, given the circumstances were reversed, they wouldn't be just as corrupt as the Liberals have been. There's no easy way to prove the negative. Which works in the Liberal's favour, as the perceived corruption of all politicians cancels out the Liberals' very real corruption. (Note that the Bloc doesn't necessarily face the same obstacle, as they've managed to cast themselves effectively in the role of Quebec's champion in the fight against federal corruption, which in their mythology is inherent in all other federal political parties, Liberals, Conservatives and NDP included.)

My conjecture: the challenge for the "other" parties is to make whatever political hay the Gomery report will allow* and then move forward with policy propositions that distance themselves from the Liberal positions, even if current political wisdom views such positions to be politically suicidal. The goal at this point has to be to present your party as a genuine alternative to the Liberals, and to emphasise that your proposals are ethical and have merit. Merely complaining about Liberal roguery in the past will have little effect.

One proposal that (as always) immediately comes to mind is that the Conservatives come out forcefully in favour of allowing private for-profit medical treatment as an alternative to the public system. The trick is not to fall into the Liberal/NDP linguistic trap wherein the argument is framed by the term "American-style two-tiered healthcare system". It has to be recast from the conservative viewpoint, as a choice between forcing wealthy people with the ability pay their own way into the queue (and necessarily in front of others who can't pay), and freeing up needed resources within the public system by allowing "people of privilege" to seek their care elsewhere. A few pointed questions: Why are the Liberals in favour of a woman's right to choose, unless she's wealthy and wants the option to pay for medical services? Why is the government in favour of allowing private care for the frivolous (cosmetic surgery) while denying that option for the serious (heart surgery)? Why are the Liberals insistent that the governemt has no business in the bedroom, but has every right to sit in at the doctor's office, and to demand that it be de facto consulted about the correct course of care?

The immediate reaction to this suggestion in some circles will be negative, under the presumption that a forceful stand in favour of private medicine will drive soft conservative voters away from the Conservative party. But will it really? After a decade of conservative infighting and bloodshed, are there any soft conservative voters left? Not many, in my modest opinion. The only direction to go is up, but this won't be achieved by ceding moral and ethical authority on critical issues to people you're trying to portray as corrupt.

*Which is scant, in that the average Canadian who hasn't been following the story (about 98% of us outside of Quebec) sees this scandal as nothing more serious than the Liberals pissing another $250 million into Quebec. And for what? The Liberal party appears to have benefitted to the tune of only a couple of million bucks all totalled. Which, I guess, makes them appear to the average Canadian to be inept in their criminality, and loveably so.

Update: Welcome LIB readers! Thanks for the link, Bob. Check out Bob's great take on the same topic here.