Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/1541334
16 www.lexpert.ca InHouse Profile ADVOCACY, INTEGRITY, AND SUPREME COURT IMPACT A LEGAL system that fails to confront myths about sexual violence doesn't just fall short – it can deepen harm for survivors. at reality was powerfully underscored by the Supreme Court of Canada's recent decision in R. v. Sheppard, where the court restored a six-year prison sentence for a teacher who sexually abused a student at an Alberta boarding school in the 1990s. e ruling decisively rejected outdated assumptions about historical sexual violence and set a new standard for judicial reasoning in such cases. Angela Marinos, chief general counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), intervened in Sheppard and calls the ruling a watershed. "I was very pleased to see the court specifically agree with my argument that [the Alberta Court of Appeal] had relied on discredited myths, reject the myths, and also accept my argu- ment that Friesen applies to historical sexual abuse cases," she says. "ese crimes happen in the darkness, so anything we can do to shine the light of the law on the darkness is a good step forward." e SCC, led by Chief Justice Richard Wagner and Justice Malcolm Rowe, made clear that courts must apply contemporary sentencing principles to historical offences, provided sentences do not exceed the maximum penalty at the time. In Sheppard, a teacher was found guilty of abusing a grade-seven student under the guise of corporal punishment. e Alberta Court of Appeal had reduced the sentence, relying on pre-Friesen jurisprudence and questioning the trial judge's findings. e SCC reversed this, restoring the original sentence and emphasizing that "children who have expe- rienced historical sexual violence equally deserve the full protection of the law as it is today," as Marinos puts it. For Marinos, the decision is more than a legal win; it's a meaningful step for survi- vors. "e Supreme Court has unequivo- cally found that sexual violence against chil- dren is 'profoundly immoral' and that the "THE SUPREME COURT HAS UNEQUIVOCALLY FOUND THAT SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IS 'PROFOUNDLY IMMORAL' AND THAT THE PASSAGE OF TIME DOESN'T LESSEN THE GRAVITY OF THESE CRIMES" AS CHIEF COUNSEL AT A HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, ANGELA MARINOS CHALLENGES LEGAL MYTHS AND ADVANCES JUSTICE FOR VULNERABLE CANADIANS