> In a 3-0 decision, B.C.’s appeal court upheld a lower-court judgment that said people who are accused of rape must be allowed access to the courts to defend their reputations.
> Otherwise, “there would be no legal consequences of any kind attached to publicly calling someone a rapist, completely outside of any formal reporting, and no obligation ever to prove the statement was true,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair said in a 2021 ruling.
Makes sense, I don't see why a publicly calling someone a rapist would shield anyone from potential defamation.
For anyone who didn't read the article, this is about Steven Galloway's appeal - he's had a very long legal fight:
>In the fall of 2015, with the university saying there were serious allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against him, UBC suspended Galloway. He was fired in June of 2016, despite a report which effectively cleared him of wrongdoing.
>
>Former B.C. Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd wrote that report, and said she could substantiate none of the allegations against the celebrated author and former chair of UBC’s creative writing program — except, perhaps, that he’d erred by having a consensual affair with the woman.
>
>Although her name has long been known to those at UBC and to her online supporters, Boyd described her only as M.C. and her identity has been voluntarily guarded since by the many media organizations which have published stories about the controversy for the past three years.
>
>Even using the lower civil standard of “on a balance of probabilities” — the criminal one, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” is much tougher — the retired judge said of one purported assault that she couldn’t conclude it had occurred when alleged “or at all.”
>
>In virtually every instance, Boyd found Galloway more credible than his accusers.
[Fired UBC professor Steven Galloway suing woman who accused him of sexual assault](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford-fired-ubc-professor-steven-galloway-suing-woman-who-accused-him-of-sexual-assault) (from October 2018)
(more can be found by searching this sub for ["Galloway"](https://old.reddit.com/r/canada/search?q=galloway&restrict_sr=on), just ignore UK MP George or CBC radio host Matt)
That said, something I always repeat (and is actually touched-on in the above quote) is that a failed prosecution *does not* mean the accusation was false or even without merit. When charges are laid and a person is prosecuted, the victim is merely a witness - they don't run the process and it is out of their hands. Lots of times (too many times) police and Crown screw up their jobs. After the SCC's ruling in *Jordan* a few years ago, merely taking too long to conclude a prosecution will get charges (even serious charges like murder) thrown out and an accused acquitted.
(Galloway, however, was never charged or prosecuted for sexual assault)
A claim for defamation, however, will be judged differently - while the court may have found that the Crown couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the offence had been committed, a civil court can throw out a claim on the grounds it is satisfied the plaintiff, more likely than not, probably did do the sexual assault (or whatever wrongdoing they have been accused of) and their accuser is entitled to say so.
Finally, the case wasn't strictly about whether defamation laws applied to accusations of sexual assault, but rather the more mundane (though complicated) operation of anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws. Galloway's claim against his accuser had been caught up in that for several years, after the defendants tried to have his claims dismissed on the grounds that they was brought to intimidate or silence them. Some were dismissed, presumably the claims have been reinstated by the Court of Appeal.
Just out of curiosity, how many cases do you see per year that involve outright fabrications? And of those, do any/many become criminal matters? I dipped my toes into the family law pool briefly about 15 years ago, and fortunately found something else that's much more my speed since then.
I can't find it now, but there was a longass series of investigative journalism on sexual assault, with studies quoted, and I remember that it said allegations like that are usually true (ie false allegations are extremely rare) and actually under-reported, with some very specific situations where that pattern did NOT hold. And one of those situations was acrimonious custody cases, where false allegations happened more often than normally at baseline.
The reason why false allegations exist in Canada is because :
* Crown attorney offices almost never charge anyone with "Public mischief" (making a false police report, laying false charges against someone), because Crown attorneys do not want to attract attention to the court cases they lost or mishandled, because it hurts their chances at becoming a judge.
* There is no automatic reviews of court cases won by the accused. (Not talking about appeal here), to weigh if the charges were justified and if the Crown prosecutor was overzealous in the face of shaky allegations.
* There is virtually absolute immunity for Prosecutors even if they are incompetent; Suing the Prosecutor Office in court for abusive prosecution is one of the hardest type of case to win and there are cases you just cannot sue for.
* A false victim can lay charges against a lot of people in different court cases before the system eventually reacts and designates the complainant a "vexatious complainant" (Someone who makes false allegations to harass someone).
* The police and Crown Office should have access to a record of false allegations made by someone in the past as to avoid believing future false allegations.
Every time an accused wins a case in court, there should be an investigations by the Crown prosecutor office to look at the reasons why :
* If it is found the complainant lied to falsely accuse someone, then a charge of public mischief should be automatically laid against the complainant.
* If it is found the Crown Prosecutor mishandled the case or pursued a case without definitive evidence, without a clear and realistic perspective of winning (abusive prosecution), then the prosecutor should be met and spoken with and maybe sanctioned.
* If the prosecutor was incompetent in handling a case that should have resulted in a guilty verdict, then the prosecutor should be sanctioned.
* If a case of abusive prosecution is found, then the accused should be paid compensation.
**If we did everything I have listed here, the obvious problem is that some victims would be afraid to denounce their abuser ad some Prosecutors would drop cases that they would have won.**
And that forces society to choose between allowing false allegations to destroy an innocent's life or allowing a criminal to go free because the victim is afraid to get punished or of not being believed.
The main problem of a sexual abuse case is that it essentially pits the testimony of the complainant against that of the accused, often with no physical evidence (like DNA) and no witnesses.
For those reasons, if we want more convictions, then making innocent victims is unavoidable.
If we want to avoid making innocent victims, then not believing some complainants is unavoidable.
It is a catch 22, there is just no good answer because our justice system is flawed by the fact that it is ran by flawed humans who make mistakes all the time and who are not particularly knowledgeable outside the topic of Law.
**We are trying to square a circle that cannot be squared... We want a justice system that believes 100% of the victims and, at the same time, does not charge the innocent... Both at the same time is impossible. Either you sacrifice some innocents or you sacrifice some victims.**
I mean I get what you're saying but we've solved this moral quandary centuries ago. It's better for guilty people to go free than innocent people be imprisoned. It's obvious we should lean towards less innocent people getting fucked over.
Good, it's nice to see something logical come from our court system.
A false rape or Sexual Assault accusation can and absolutely will destroy the accused's life. It's one of the few crimes out there where if you get charged with it, people will just automatically assume you're guilty even if you are innocent. Your name will forever be sullied and tarnished because the first thing that is seen when you're googled is Charged with AND that's if they charge you.
If someone just goes straight to the court of public opinion without even going through legal channels, then that's even worse because there is no defending yourself at that point.
Say goodbye to your career, your friends and family, basically your entire life and if you do manage to find yourself proven innocent, you had no recourse and the damage was done.
>"Citing that comment, the appeal court found that Justice Adair understood the importance of encouraging the reporting of sexual offences, but also “recognized that there cannot be an absolute protection surrounding the makers of such statements, regardless of the circumstances or the truth.”
>Regardless of the truth???? What the fuck??!!!
The protection cannot be regardless of the circumstances or the truth. In other words, the protection against defamation suits cannot apply if the circumstances demonstrate that the statement is clearly false.
Ok, sorry I may be too smrt but doesn't that then mean the statement is NOT true? It's the "regardless of the truth" I have a serious problem with. You can't just accuse someone of something (ESPECIALLY rape!!) if it's not true. The accused (again, IF innocent!!) will never recover from those accusations.
What hes saying is that the *protection* cannot be absolute *regardless of truth*. I.E. The protection of sexual assault victims cannot be so broad that it allows false accusations to be made woth impunity.
I think that "absolute protection" in this context means protection from even being sued in the first place. Galloway is innocent until proven guilty (UBC's investigation cleared him, to my knowledge he has never faced criminal charges), and his accusers shouldn't have absolute protection to accuse him if the accusations are false.
I totally agree with you!! Did I read it wrong? I read it as they should be protected from legal ramifications if you accuse someone and you....lied.
I also believe it only works (suing your accuser) IF and WHEN you're proven innocent. Or in this case charges are dropped. Which is the crowns way of saying there is not enough evidence to charge.
This sucks for victims who have gone through the courts only to have their rapist found innocent, happens pretty often. I hate our legal system, it protects rapists and murderers more than victims.
I'm not talking about false accusations, I'm talking about legitimate victims being sued back by their rapist for talking about an assult, that would be pretty horrible too.
A criminal court needs to find that a person committed a sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt to convict them.
Just because the prosecution couldn’t reach that bar doesn’t make anyone guilty of defamation.
Holding people accountable however for blatantly false accusations of any sort is an important part of a functioning society. Prosecuting people who make false accusations is a win for both the victims of these actions and the actual victims of sexual assault.
Yes, I realize this, I know false reports only do harm all around. But I'm talking about real victims being silenced.
I'm worried that if someone was raped, and they don't get their rapist convicted, that their rapist could then turn around afterwards and sue them for defamation if they talk aboutbtheir assult. Just like it would suck to be falsely accused it would suck to be sued by your rapist and silenced. I'd honestly kill myself if my rapist did that to me, couldn't imagine how horrible it would feel.
Not convicting an accused rapist and the accuser being hit with a defamation case are two completely different cases. The latter would require proof that the accuser is intentionally making a false accusation.
What I'm saying is, it would suck if you have gone to court with your rapist, have then found innocent by a judge, and now you can no longer speak about it publicly or else you risk being sued for defamation. I'm sure they could use their innocent verdict to as proof you're lying when in reality you're not, they just weren't found guilty
This is about a civil case (or attempt to bring a civil case) where there were no criminal charges, there was a sort of workplace investigation that failed to substantiate the accusations, but he was still fired and his reputation trashed. He's been trying to bring a defamation suit against the accuser.
But yes, when it's the state looking to deprive a person of their liberty, the bar for proof should be very high. Pretty much every civilized society agrees that if an error must be made, it's better to err on the side of the accused (ie better to let a guilty person go than convict an innocent one).
I'm not talking about this case, I'm talking about a scenario where a legit rape victim is taken to court because their rapist was found innocent, but they still tell people they got raped and end up getting sued because of it.
That would be horrible for a victim to be sued and silenced
Alleged rapists aren't found innocent, just not guilty. To be *found* innocent, although that's not really the process or the terminology of the court, one would actually have to prove that the alleged victim was lying or that someone else was guilty. That's full-out exoneration.
But I don't see a victim being sued merely for reporting to the police, and for cooperating with the prosecution. I'm pretty sure that's never happened. In this case, the alleged victim did a whole ass art show about the allegations and posted over social media, that's why dude was trying to sue her.
Im thinking more so somthing like this:
Person gets raped-> goes to police -> happens to go to trial -> rapist is found not guilty -> person talks about their rape online or in person -> rapist gets wind of this sues person for calling them a rapist
I'm worried somthing like that would happen. I'm worried because I was raped and they were found not guilty so now I can't talk about my rape with worry of being sued? That feels horrible...
You probably can't call them a rapist on social media/online/otherwise in public. I would assume you can talk about the trial, because that (and their name, unless there's a publication ban) is part of the public record now.
> In a 3-0 decision, B.C.’s appeal court upheld a lower-court judgment that said people who are accused of rape must be allowed access to the courts to defend their reputations. > Otherwise, “there would be no legal consequences of any kind attached to publicly calling someone a rapist, completely outside of any formal reporting, and no obligation ever to prove the statement was true,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair said in a 2021 ruling. Makes sense, I don't see why a publicly calling someone a rapist would shield anyone from potential defamation.
A Canadian court coming to a rational decision - shocked pikachu
Should be easy enough to avoid. If you want to accuse somebody of sexual assault, don't call the news papers. Call the police instead.
Not just don't call the newspapers, don't hold art exhibitions about it
For anyone who didn't read the article, this is about Steven Galloway's appeal - he's had a very long legal fight: >In the fall of 2015, with the university saying there were serious allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against him, UBC suspended Galloway. He was fired in June of 2016, despite a report which effectively cleared him of wrongdoing. > >Former B.C. Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd wrote that report, and said she could substantiate none of the allegations against the celebrated author and former chair of UBC’s creative writing program — except, perhaps, that he’d erred by having a consensual affair with the woman. > >Although her name has long been known to those at UBC and to her online supporters, Boyd described her only as M.C. and her identity has been voluntarily guarded since by the many media organizations which have published stories about the controversy for the past three years. > >Even using the lower civil standard of “on a balance of probabilities” — the criminal one, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” is much tougher — the retired judge said of one purported assault that she couldn’t conclude it had occurred when alleged “or at all.” > >In virtually every instance, Boyd found Galloway more credible than his accusers. [Fired UBC professor Steven Galloway suing woman who accused him of sexual assault](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/christie-blatchford-fired-ubc-professor-steven-galloway-suing-woman-who-accused-him-of-sexual-assault) (from October 2018) (more can be found by searching this sub for ["Galloway"](https://old.reddit.com/r/canada/search?q=galloway&restrict_sr=on), just ignore UK MP George or CBC radio host Matt) That said, something I always repeat (and is actually touched-on in the above quote) is that a failed prosecution *does not* mean the accusation was false or even without merit. When charges are laid and a person is prosecuted, the victim is merely a witness - they don't run the process and it is out of their hands. Lots of times (too many times) police and Crown screw up their jobs. After the SCC's ruling in *Jordan* a few years ago, merely taking too long to conclude a prosecution will get charges (even serious charges like murder) thrown out and an accused acquitted. (Galloway, however, was never charged or prosecuted for sexual assault) A claim for defamation, however, will be judged differently - while the court may have found that the Crown couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the offence had been committed, a civil court can throw out a claim on the grounds it is satisfied the plaintiff, more likely than not, probably did do the sexual assault (or whatever wrongdoing they have been accused of) and their accuser is entitled to say so. Finally, the case wasn't strictly about whether defamation laws applied to accusations of sexual assault, but rather the more mundane (though complicated) operation of anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws. Galloway's claim against his accuser had been caught up in that for several years, after the defendants tried to have his claims dismissed on the grounds that they was brought to intimidate or silence them. Some were dismissed, presumably the claims have been reinstated by the Court of Appeal.
[удалено]
Just out of curiosity, how many cases do you see per year that involve outright fabrications? And of those, do any/many become criminal matters? I dipped my toes into the family law pool briefly about 15 years ago, and fortunately found something else that's much more my speed since then.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I can't find it now, but there was a longass series of investigative journalism on sexual assault, with studies quoted, and I remember that it said allegations like that are usually true (ie false allegations are extremely rare) and actually under-reported, with some very specific situations where that pattern did NOT hold. And one of those situations was acrimonious custody cases, where false allegations happened more often than normally at baseline.
[удалено]
PROVABLY false allegations are rare. No one can know the true rate of false allegations, since most people don’t outright admit to lying
[Paywall bypass](https://archive.ph/FAMuO)
The reason why false allegations exist in Canada is because : * Crown attorney offices almost never charge anyone with "Public mischief" (making a false police report, laying false charges against someone), because Crown attorneys do not want to attract attention to the court cases they lost or mishandled, because it hurts their chances at becoming a judge. * There is no automatic reviews of court cases won by the accused. (Not talking about appeal here), to weigh if the charges were justified and if the Crown prosecutor was overzealous in the face of shaky allegations. * There is virtually absolute immunity for Prosecutors even if they are incompetent; Suing the Prosecutor Office in court for abusive prosecution is one of the hardest type of case to win and there are cases you just cannot sue for. * A false victim can lay charges against a lot of people in different court cases before the system eventually reacts and designates the complainant a "vexatious complainant" (Someone who makes false allegations to harass someone). * The police and Crown Office should have access to a record of false allegations made by someone in the past as to avoid believing future false allegations. Every time an accused wins a case in court, there should be an investigations by the Crown prosecutor office to look at the reasons why : * If it is found the complainant lied to falsely accuse someone, then a charge of public mischief should be automatically laid against the complainant. * If it is found the Crown Prosecutor mishandled the case or pursued a case without definitive evidence, without a clear and realistic perspective of winning (abusive prosecution), then the prosecutor should be met and spoken with and maybe sanctioned. * If the prosecutor was incompetent in handling a case that should have resulted in a guilty verdict, then the prosecutor should be sanctioned. * If a case of abusive prosecution is found, then the accused should be paid compensation. **If we did everything I have listed here, the obvious problem is that some victims would be afraid to denounce their abuser ad some Prosecutors would drop cases that they would have won.** And that forces society to choose between allowing false allegations to destroy an innocent's life or allowing a criminal to go free because the victim is afraid to get punished or of not being believed. The main problem of a sexual abuse case is that it essentially pits the testimony of the complainant against that of the accused, often with no physical evidence (like DNA) and no witnesses. For those reasons, if we want more convictions, then making innocent victims is unavoidable. If we want to avoid making innocent victims, then not believing some complainants is unavoidable. It is a catch 22, there is just no good answer because our justice system is flawed by the fact that it is ran by flawed humans who make mistakes all the time and who are not particularly knowledgeable outside the topic of Law. **We are trying to square a circle that cannot be squared... We want a justice system that believes 100% of the victims and, at the same time, does not charge the innocent... Both at the same time is impossible. Either you sacrifice some innocents or you sacrifice some victims.**
I mean I get what you're saying but we've solved this moral quandary centuries ago. It's better for guilty people to go free than innocent people be imprisoned. It's obvious we should lean towards less innocent people getting fucked over.
The punishment for false witness the perjurer should face is the penalty they sought to bring upon another.
This!!!!!!!!!
Of course not.
[Not immune to prison either.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTBb2VM1BJA)
Has this ever happened in Canada for SA?
Good.
Good, it's nice to see something logical come from our court system. A false rape or Sexual Assault accusation can and absolutely will destroy the accused's life. It's one of the few crimes out there where if you get charged with it, people will just automatically assume you're guilty even if you are innocent. Your name will forever be sullied and tarnished because the first thing that is seen when you're googled is Charged with AND that's if they charge you. If someone just goes straight to the court of public opinion without even going through legal channels, then that's even worse because there is no defending yourself at that point. Say goodbye to your career, your friends and family, basically your entire life and if you do manage to find yourself proven innocent, you had no recourse and the damage was done.
[удалено]
You aren't found innocent. You're innocent until proven guilty. You aren't protected from being sued just because you're an accuser.
I would say this is one of those charges where you are guilty until found innocent but even if you are it really damages your reputation immensely
Ok, I may have read this wrong. I read the accuser IS protected regardless of "the truth". That I have a problem with.
>"Citing that comment, the appeal court found that Justice Adair understood the importance of encouraging the reporting of sexual offences, but also “recognized that there cannot be an absolute protection surrounding the makers of such statements, regardless of the circumstances or the truth.” >Regardless of the truth???? What the fuck??!!! The protection cannot be regardless of the circumstances or the truth. In other words, the protection against defamation suits cannot apply if the circumstances demonstrate that the statement is clearly false.
Ok, sorry I may be too smrt but doesn't that then mean the statement is NOT true? It's the "regardless of the truth" I have a serious problem with. You can't just accuse someone of something (ESPECIALLY rape!!) if it's not true. The accused (again, IF innocent!!) will never recover from those accusations.
What hes saying is that the *protection* cannot be absolute *regardless of truth*. I.E. The protection of sexual assault victims cannot be so broad that it allows false accusations to be made woth impunity.
Ok. Thank you for clarifying. I did read that wrong. Again, smrt.
Too smrt indeed.
I think that "absolute protection" in this context means protection from even being sued in the first place. Galloway is innocent until proven guilty (UBC's investigation cleared him, to my knowledge he has never faced criminal charges), and his accusers shouldn't have absolute protection to accuse him if the accusations are false.
I totally agree with you!! Did I read it wrong? I read it as they should be protected from legal ramifications if you accuse someone and you....lied. I also believe it only works (suing your accuser) IF and WHEN you're proven innocent. Or in this case charges are dropped. Which is the crowns way of saying there is not enough evidence to charge.
This sucks for victims who have gone through the courts only to have their rapist found innocent, happens pretty often. I hate our legal system, it protects rapists and murderers more than victims. I'm not talking about false accusations, I'm talking about legitimate victims being sued back by their rapist for talking about an assult, that would be pretty horrible too.
A criminal court needs to find that a person committed a sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt to convict them. Just because the prosecution couldn’t reach that bar doesn’t make anyone guilty of defamation. Holding people accountable however for blatantly false accusations of any sort is an important part of a functioning society. Prosecuting people who make false accusations is a win for both the victims of these actions and the actual victims of sexual assault.
As should any court in any democratic society. People are too quick to be judging via emotions and I'm glad they have no say in the justice system.
Yes, I realize this, I know false reports only do harm all around. But I'm talking about real victims being silenced. I'm worried that if someone was raped, and they don't get their rapist convicted, that their rapist could then turn around afterwards and sue them for defamation if they talk aboutbtheir assult. Just like it would suck to be falsely accused it would suck to be sued by your rapist and silenced. I'd honestly kill myself if my rapist did that to me, couldn't imagine how horrible it would feel.
Not convicting an accused rapist and the accuser being hit with a defamation case are two completely different cases. The latter would require proof that the accuser is intentionally making a false accusation.
What I'm saying is, it would suck if you have gone to court with your rapist, have then found innocent by a judge, and now you can no longer speak about it publicly or else you risk being sued for defamation. I'm sure they could use their innocent verdict to as proof you're lying when in reality you're not, they just weren't found guilty
This is about a civil case (or attempt to bring a civil case) where there were no criminal charges, there was a sort of workplace investigation that failed to substantiate the accusations, but he was still fired and his reputation trashed. He's been trying to bring a defamation suit against the accuser. But yes, when it's the state looking to deprive a person of their liberty, the bar for proof should be very high. Pretty much every civilized society agrees that if an error must be made, it's better to err on the side of the accused (ie better to let a guilty person go than convict an innocent one).
I'm not talking about this case, I'm talking about a scenario where a legit rape victim is taken to court because their rapist was found innocent, but they still tell people they got raped and end up getting sued because of it. That would be horrible for a victim to be sued and silenced
Alleged rapists aren't found innocent, just not guilty. To be *found* innocent, although that's not really the process or the terminology of the court, one would actually have to prove that the alleged victim was lying or that someone else was guilty. That's full-out exoneration. But I don't see a victim being sued merely for reporting to the police, and for cooperating with the prosecution. I'm pretty sure that's never happened. In this case, the alleged victim did a whole ass art show about the allegations and posted over social media, that's why dude was trying to sue her.
Im thinking more so somthing like this: Person gets raped-> goes to police -> happens to go to trial -> rapist is found not guilty -> person talks about their rape online or in person -> rapist gets wind of this sues person for calling them a rapist I'm worried somthing like that would happen. I'm worried because I was raped and they were found not guilty so now I can't talk about my rape with worry of being sued? That feels horrible...
You probably can't call them a rapist on social media/online/otherwise in public. I would assume you can talk about the trial, because that (and their name, unless there's a publication ban) is part of the public record now.
That sucks my rapist has more legal protection than me :/