The courts are our society’s ultimate tool for holding us accountable.
Tell that to Ivan Henry, the North Vancouver man who spent 27 years in jail for sexual assaults he did not commit. After a Supreme Court decision on Friday, Henry has now won the rare opportunity to sue the Crown for his wrongful conviction.
The circumstances around Henry’s case are far from typical. But it’s shocking how “innocent until proven guilty” didn’t seem to enter the thoughts of those involved.
The decision by the Supreme Court on Friday won’t have far-reaching implications, but it will have important ones for the few people unlucky enough to be wrongly convicted because important information wasn’t disclosed.
The state still enjoys remarkable insulation from lawsuits, even when its actions have led to a wrongful criminal conviction. That’s a gap that should be closed.
There’s nothing worse our courts could do than fail an innocent person. Courts are institutions built on lofty ideals. But they are still run by humans and humans make mistakes, whether it’s through malice, negligence or honest oversight. That’s what happened to Henry and a number of other Canadians.
We’d all like to think we could prove our innocence if wrongly accused. But as the Henry case shows, once tunnel vision sets in, that can be easier said than done.
Henry deserves compensation for the life he had stolen by an imperfect system.
As the Roman poet Juvenal famously asked, “Who will watch the watchmen?”
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