People of Canada, are demanding that a judge be removed from the bench for blaming a victim of rape.
Justice Robin Camp of Alberta, was trying a case of a teenager who claimed she was raped by man during a house party.
The 19-year-old woman called police and said that Alexander Scott Wagar Calgary, raped her on a bathroom sink at the party.
During the trial, the judge repeatedly referred to the victim as “the
accused,” and he asked her why she did not do things to defend herself.
Camp asked the victim questions like why she “didn’t keep her knees together” to make it impossible for the man to rape her.
He also asked: “Why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the sink basin so that he couldn’t penetrate you?”
The judge also berated the victim for not trying hard enough to escape
from the 253-pound man. “If you were frightened, you could have
screamed,” he said.
Wagar, who maintained that the sex was consensual, was acquitted. When
dismissing the charges against the suspect, the judge called it a
“misbehavior” and he then advised Wagar on how he could avoid getting
himself into a similar situation in the future.
“You’ve got to be really sure that she’s saying ‘yes,’ so remind
yourself every time that you get involved with a girl from now on and
tell your friends, OK?” The judge said.
The Court of Criminal Appeal of Alberta, overturned the acquittal and
ordered a new trial. It was during this process that the offensive
comments from Camp were released in full.
After Camp was appointed from provincial judge to the Federal Court, many people are demanding that he be dismissed.
Since this is not the first time the judge has caused outrage over his
rulings, officials announced this week, that a hearing would take place
in August, to determine if the judge gets to keep his job.
Camp defended himself by filing his own submission to the council,
claiming that he learned from his mistakes and he believes the whole
episode has made him a better judge and a better person.
He wrote in part that his “training, counseling and this process as a
whole have left him better equipped to judge cases with the empathy,
wisdom and sensitivity to social context to which all judges aspire.”