Federal bill called missed opportunity for judges' domestic violence training

A recent federal bill requiring training for new judges on sexual assault cases was a missed opportunity to mandate domestic violence training as well, says P.E.I.'s executive director of Family Violence Prevention Services.

"Wouldn't it be great to get it all at once?" Danya O'Malley told Island Morning host Laura Chapin.

"If you're making decisions in these major, major issues like family violence, domestic violence, sexual violence, it has the ability to change the course of the victim's life forever. So wouldn't judges want to have as much information as possible?"

In an emailed statement to CBC News, the office of the federal minister of justice said the aim of Bill C-3 is to keep myths and stereotypes out of the courtroom.

"The justice system must serve survivors of sexual assault, gender-based violence, and all Canadians fairly and respectfully. As well as, ensure that sexual assault cases will be heard without the influence of myths and prejudices," the email said.

Protecting the children

O'Malley said there are many misunderstood aspects of domestic violence that need to be addressed.

People, including judges, don't understand why people in abusive situations will stay in them for so long. They also believe that if children have not been harmed yet, then it is unlikely that they will be, when what might be happening is the abused partner may be acting as a buffer for the children.

Parents are concerned that post-separation the children may be the only outlet for aggression.

"In fact, shared children is one of the reasons that people stay in relationships for a very long time," said O'Malley.

"They're very fearful of the perpetrator having unsupervised access to the children."

Hard road to justice

Research has shown, she said, that relatively few cases of sexual assault and domestic abuse are reported to police, and for those that are there is a lower chance of charges being laid. Yet, O'Malley said, there is still an emphasis on the possibility of false accusation.

"Because that might happen, you know, not never, suddenly all cases are measured by that yardstick. And I think that that is incredibly unfair," she said.

People looking to report domestic abuse are aware of the difficulty of successfully seeing a case through, said O'Malley, and that has an impact on their willingness to report to authorities.

"They don't want to go through court because they perceive, often quite correctly, that at the end of the day they would go through all of that and there would be no justice," she said.

O'Malley acknowledged judges face very difficult decisions in these cases, and that is all the more reason for more training.

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