The lack of diversity in the composition of the juries?

QMI agency

Sunday, 25 February, 2018 20:25

UPDATE
Sunday, 25 February, 2018 20:25

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The acquittal of two men of the Western canadian accused of killing aboriginal people raised the indignation to Quebec.

Of the province’s lawyers are of the view that it is no longer acceptable to exclude members of the minorities in the composition of the juries.

“For the people of the minorities or of aboriginal people feel that these are the peers that judge them, and well, it must be representative,” says the lawyer Jacky-Éric Salvant.

This criminal is campaigning for a reform in the way we compose the juries in criminal trials.

“We are advocates of the jury mixed, because it must be understood that justice, it is also a matter of perception. Even though justice was made, if the perception is negative, this is not good”, he believes.

Concrete example

I Salvant cites the example of a cause that he pleaded recently.

His client, a young Black man with a heavy criminal record, was accused of involuntary homicide on a white man aged 84.

It struck the octogenarian who took it out on a woman in a dancing bar in the city centre.

The young man was acquitted after a trial before a judge alone.

“It has come to the conclusion that the Crown had not shown beyond any doubt that there was a causal link between what happened in the peep-show and the death of the individual,” he says.

For him, an acquittal before the jury was unlikely.

“Perceptions of it, might be able to play against our client. We didn’t want to take that chance. We wanted to be decided in accordance with the law.”

The League of Black du Québec abounds in the same direction.

“People think that there is no justice for them. Then, it affects the whole of society,” explains the president of the organization, Dan Philip.

In Canada, more voices are heard for a reform in the selection of juries, particularly after the acquittal of two men accused of two murders of aboriginal people in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.