Boreal

KIRPAN IV

Kirpans, Hairpins and Judges

The judge has ruled, the prosecution may appeal and the insanity of allowing children to bring concealed weapons to schools continues to spread.

On Wednesday April 13, 2009 a thirteen year old Sikh boy accused of threatening two mildly-retarded schoolmates with his kirpan and his hairpin for following him and two friends too closely was acquitted of threatening the boys with his kirpan, but found guilty of threatening the boys with his hairpin.

How did Judge Ouellet arrive at this less than Solomon-like decision?

Judges in Canada, from the lowest to the highest, are political appointments. The way Canada appoints judges means that our courts are not blessed with an overabundance of the best and brightness. Nonetheless, Canadian judges are among the best remunerated in the world. This may explain why trials in Canada tend to last forever. No, it’s not because we pay our judges by the hour. It may have something to do with Thorsten Veblen’s [1857-1929] Theory of the Leisure Class.

Veblen postulated that an increase in compensation does not necessarily lead to an increase in performance. He argued that the beneficiary of compensation beyond what is needed to live comfortably and provide for one’s family will usually invest his surplus compensation in more leisure time and conspicuous consumption at the expense of work time. This may also explain the mismanagement of the American economy by those obscenely overpaid bankers, but I digress.

Judge’s Ouellet’s decision may not rank up there with Judge Raymonde Verreault, or Judge Monique Dubreuil’s decision which were also influence by religious and ethical considerations, but it is another significant advance in Canadian courts accepting religion and ethnicity as mitigating factors in arriving at their decision.

In 1994, Quebec Judge Raymonde Verreault citing extenuating circumstances handed down a 23-month sentence to a man who had repeatedly sodomized his stepdaughter from the time she was 9 until 11. Under Canadian law, if the sodomizer of children behaves in prison, he will only spend six to eight months under lock and key before being set free.

The extenuating circumstances cited by Judge Verreault: “the attacker had respected the values of her [his stepdaughter’s] Muslim faith and had spared her virginity by not engaging in vaginal intercourse.”

In 1998, Judge Monique Dubreuil angered the Haitian community when she sentenced two Haitian men to an 18-month suspended sentence for sexual assault because, according to Her Honour, “they came from a culture where rape is accepted.”

Back to Judge Ouellet’s decision. His Honour did not believe the young Sikh’s explanations for removing his hairpin from his turban during the confrontation that it was to adjust his hair.

So far so good.

But why did the judge not also find him guilty of threatening the boys with his dagger? According to Judge Ouellet, the twins’ testimony was not credible because they could not answer a question as to the nationality and religion of their would-be assailant.

According to La Presse reporter Caroline Touzin, the Montreal Sikh community breathe a of sigh relief when the youth was only found guilty of threatening the boys with a hairpin* which is not considered a religious symbol.

No kidding!

Finding the young Sikh guilty of using his kirpan to threaten other schoolchildren would only have thrown the spotlight once more on the Supreme Court’s decision to allow children to bring concealed weapons to school and may have caused them to revisit their insane decree.

Bernard Payeur

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* The judge gave the defendant an absolute discharge, meaning that the young Sikh is not required to keep his distance from the twins as requested by the prosecution.

In all of Canada’s one hundred and forty some year history, not a single superior court judge or higher has ever been forcibly removed. Canada came close this year. After a five year investigation, (in Canada, even the most simplest investigation seem to take forever) a recommendation was made that Superior Court Justice Paul Cosgrove be removed from the bench after he mistakenly freed a woman from Barbados accused of murdering and dismembering her former lover while vacationing in Canada. He chose to retire before the recommendation could be acted upon.

During the five year investigation into his conduct and fitness for the job, Superior Court Justice Paul Cosgrove continued drawing his $260,000+ salary. Now he will have to do with a modest annual pension estimated at $171.000+.

Kirpan I - Court Okays Children Bringing Concealed Weapons to School

Kirpan II - Daggers are In, Flutes are Out!

Kirpan III - A Dagger is Drawn