This morning, Justice William Horkins of the Ontario Court of Justice acquitted Jian Ghomeshi of four charges of sexual assault and a fifth charge of choking. Social media immediately erupted in a firestorm of #believethevictims and #believeallsurvivors. Many insults were also directed toward the judge, who, by all accounts, behaved impeccably during the trial. Indeed, he made an evidentiary ruling near the ...

The Ghomeshi trial has exposed a reality of the criminal justice system which is the bane of every criminal defence lawyer’s existence. In most ‘domestics’ — as allegations of sexual or physical assault between family members or romantic partners are called in the system—the current modus operandi of police and Crown prosecutors is “zero tolerance.” This means, practically, that police ...