‘We have to call it out’; Manitoba’s chief justice on wrongful convictions, racism and the justice system

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Just one day after exonerating a First Nations man for a wrongful murder conviction in 1974, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal said explanations and apologies are necssessary for judicial reconciliation.

“We can’t gain the trust,” Joyal said referring to the Indigenous community believing in the justice system, “if we can’t ourselves address where we fell short.”

On Oct. 3, Joyal acquitted Clarence Woodhouse of the murder of Winnipeg restaurant worker Ting Fong Chan based on a written confession entirely in English. Woodhouse could only speak Saulteaux.

Joyal said Woodhouse, of Pinaymootang First Nation north of Winnipeg, should not have been convicted 50 years ago due to systemic racism; the police officers were White, as was the jury.

Three other First Nations men were also acquitted of the same crime last year.

“We have to provide a system that can be trusted, that can be validated – and one of the ways we have to do that is when we see cases that can be identifiably called or described as involving systemic discrimination,” he said in a wide-ranging sit-down interview with APTN News.

“We have to call it out, we have to address it, and we have to apologize for it.”

Joyal called the Woodhouse situation “tragic”.

He said as a judge he often has to compartmentalize what he hears in court.

“I hear horrible cases, particularly in the criminal realm, that involve human suffering,” he said, noting it’s part of his responsibility to move from case to case without letting what he hears overtake or “envelope” him.

“I am not insensitive but I can do that,” Joyal added.

Most times, however, he finds “cases of wrongful conviction and miscarriages of justice much more difficult to sort of compartmentalize, not because they are worse but they are so unique.”

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https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/w ... ce-system/