MONTREAL POLICE ACT IN PLACE OF JUDGES

 

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NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE  !

                        Luke  18

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You find yourself in a dispute. You call 911 for help. Did you know that the Montreal Police are not obligated to take a citizens' complaint and make a report?

 

Furthermore, the police have the right to make a report of one party's version of a dispute and to refuse to record the information offered by the second party. I know of more than one case where this has occurred and caused serious prejudice to the persons whose reports were refused.

 

It is ridiculous therefore to say "the police are not judges" as a police woman told one crime victim I know. (See "Quebec Courts - Let's Make a Deal" )

 

This very common practice makes the police judges. The police decide what version of an event should be reported and filed and they are free to refuse the version of any of the other parties.

 

That this is an accepted practice in a democratic society is shocking. It leaves a wide pitfall for an individual officer or a team to place at a disadvantage one or more of the parties to a dispute.

 

It means that a police officer - who may favour one party's race, religion, status, language, appearance of anything else, more than the characteristics of another party - is free to record and file a one-sided, even prejudicial report, leaving the other party or parties to defend themselves as " the accused" in court. Furthermore, I was told that, if you don't have a lawyer, you do not even have the right to see the police report and you cannot obtain a copy of it,

 

This leaves the second party in a conflict at a serious disadvantage, obliged to hire a lawyer and go to court to defend himself/herself. Only then, months - or even years - down the line, do they get to have their version of the case heard, acknowledged and recorded.

 

Immediately, the impression is that the second party is counter-suing, merely to defend himself or herself. This individual's testimony is bound to be less credible than the testimony given in the official police report. Judges are strongly inclined to accept the police reports as gospel, leaving the second party to defend him or herself, not only against the original accusations, but also against the "written word" of the authorities.

 

All conscientious citizens must press their MP's and MNA's to change this unjust law, by-law or practice. It is blatantly prejudicial. It is the antithesis of democracy and it makes a mockery of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's dream of a "Just Society".

 

NOW THAT YOU KNOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT ?

 

Phyllis Carter

 

This report was first published in Phyllis Carter's Victims' Voices in 2003.
See "Montreal Police Dodge, Stifle and Bury Vital Reports", and
"Quebec Courts - Let's Make a Deal"  in Phyllis Carter's Journal
at  http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com