IS OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM TRULY WORSE THAN EVEN I SUSPECTED?

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following front page headline: "Judge overturns conviction against assault victim". While I've been expecting further developments in this story, I will admit to being somewhat surprised by the outcome. It seems that our judicial system including police, Crown prosecutors and at least one judge are willing to fall on their swords over this shocking incident in which a victim of sexual assault, after her attacker was convicted, was then charged herself with disobeying a publication ban protecting her identity. I am stunned that the various actors in this drama have apparently 1) admitted to their initial stupidity 2) reversed their apparently horrible decision to convict the young woman of disobeying the publication ban and then fining her $2,600. ............................................................................................................................... Here in the Elmira Advocate, back on April 16 and 17 I did some serious speculating as to what was going on. I made it very clear then that I was trying to come up with some kind of scenario that could possibly induce the police, Crown and a judge to behave in such a bizarre fashion towards a victim of an assault. I made it clear that my thoughts and suggestions were NOT based upon any inside information or any tips etc. but were absolutely speculation as to what could possibly induce our judicial authorities to penalize a woman whose complaints of sexual assault had been upheld at trial and her attacker convicted and sentenced. ........................................................................................................................................ Well todays article in the Record certainly does not support any suggestion that the police or Crown had information that led them to lose confidence in the victim's story after conviction of her ex-husband. There is absolutely nothing stated today that the police, Crown or Judge (Thomas McKay) made their decision to prosecute and convict the victim of a sexual assault because of some new evidence, facts or information that they chose not to reveal at trial. In fact there is not even a suggestion or hint that the judicial partners had some overiding moral or ethical reason for their apparently bizarre legal attack upon a victim of crime. ............................................................................................................................................ So what the hell are we the public to take from this? Should we commend our judicial system for admitting their mistake? Should we understand that the people involved in our judicial system have little or no common sense and only will back down after public exposure of their misdeeds? Or should we understand that our judicial system like our health care system, educational system and others are closed, non-transparent systems to the general public, who do what they damn well please, right or wrong? And have always done so with only occasionally a glimmer and a peek inside them to see what's going on? Somebody, somewhere stepped up to fix what was in the public eye a brazen, bizarre abuse of authority. If only that happened more often.