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The Current Transcript for August 23, 2016

Host: Robyn Bresnahan

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Omran was afraid and astonishment. His face was… Blood and dust covered all of his face. He didn’t cry at all.

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: That's the doctor who treated young Omran Daqneesh. Omran is five years old and by now, you have likely seen his picture. The little boy is sitting silent and alone on an orange chair in the back of an ambulance. The photo was taken after an airstrike in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Omran is casually wiping the dirt and the blood from his brow. That picture went viral last week, drawing the world's attention— however fleetingly—to the daily horrors of the crisis in Syria. But doctors in Aleppo see dozens of desperate children like him every week. Today, we start with the voices of those doing their damnedest to treat the wounded in a city under siege and bring in supplies and medical help. And then…

SOUNDCLIP

I always felt like I was wearing men's clothes walking into a court to administer men's laws.

RB: It's not every day that you hear a retired Superior Court judge open up about what it’s really like to sit on the bench in judgment of others. And you might be surprised to hear how retired Judge Marie Corbett said the job left her feeling powerless. A feature interview based on her memoir, January: A Woman Judge’s Season of Disillusion. That's coming up in half an hour. I'm Robyn Bresnahan and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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“My life is like a horrible movie”: Doctors share harrowing stories from Aleppo

Guests: Dr. Farida, Dr. Abdolsalam Daif, Dr. Zaher Sahloul

SOUNDCLIP

[Bomb exploding]

RB: The sounds of war have become disturbingly familiar in the Syrian city of Aleppo, carrying on month after month, year after year. But in the past week, the image of one small boy has given a face to the horror for millions of people around the world. Five-year-old Omran Daqneesh was pulled from the rubble of his family's Aleppo home after it was hit by an airstrike. He was captured on camera, dazed and bloodied and his survival seemed like a miracle. But the story has taken a tragic turn. Omran’s 10-year-old brother Ali died after surviving for several days in hospital. Not only is Omran’s home city of Aleppo under daily attack but the necessities of life are critically missing. After several weeks of all access being blocked, one road is now open to the area but getting humanitarian deliveries through is perilous. The UN has been calling for 48-hour ceasefires to allow aid in and yesterday, the UN's aid chief Stephen O'Brien made this plea to the Security Council:

SOUNDCLIP

I'm angry. This callous carnage that is Syria has long since moved from the cynical to the sinful. What is happening in Aleppo today and throughout Syria over the last five years is an outrage against every moral fibre in our being as human beings, as fellow human beings with every Syrian caught up in this unending cataclysm. Now is the moment, this instant, to put our differences aside and to come together as one and stop this humanitarian shame upon us all.

RB: Russia and the United States have agreed to back the ceasefires but Mr. O'Brien stressed the need for all other parties to sign on before any aid can safely be delivered. To hear more about the situation in Aleppo and how medical workers are coping with the continued bloodshed, we go to Dr. Farida. For safety purposes, we're only using her first name. Dr. Farida is an obstetrician-gynecologist working at a hospital in Aleppo. We reached her there earlier this morning and I began by asking her what it is like working in one of the most dangerous and violent parts of the city.

DOCTOR FARIDA: My life is like a horrible movie, here in Aleppo. The airstrikes are always bombing our hospitals and our houses and our streets and our schools. Imagine the schools they are [unintelligible] the schools and the mosques and markets, everything here. The Assad regime and Russia are [unintelligible] them every day. Every day. We have no day rest. No day’s rest. Our life here is like a big horrible movie.

RB: Are the bombs hitting the hospital?

DOCTOR FARIDA: Yeah. Always he’s hitting the hospitals.

RB: Are they injuring your patients?

DOCTOR FARIDA: Yeah, sometimes. One day, our patient, after the delivery, she has injured her neck with glass from the barrel bomb.

RB: How do you cope working under those conditions?

DOCTOR FARIDA: We accommodate. Just—we can’t do anything else.

RB: What about supplies? Do you have everything you need?

DOCTOR FARIDA: No, I don't have everything that I need. Some medicine, medications are [unintelligible] and the antiseptics and most of things, we don't have. And when anything stop to work, like echography or our birth chairs, no one can fix anything. So when we lost anything or any equipment in the hospital, there is nothing can help out. No one can help us.

RB: Dr. Farida, your job is to help women give birth to their babies safely. How are your patients coping with pregnancy and childbirth during this war?

DOCTOR FARIDA: The life will continue. The women here in Aleppo love babies. If she has just five babies, she will have more. She have to have more. She want to be pregnant once again. So you could imagine a city love life like Aleppo city.

RB: Do these women talk to you about their fears of bringing a child into such a dangerous situation?

DOCTOR FARIDA: They always afraid. Everyone here is afraid of anything and when they try to escape from the city, they can't. The way is very, very dangerous. The new way of Alramousa street is very dangerous. And previously the Castello street was very dangerous. And living in Aleppo is very dangerous. So the life will continue.

RB: Hundreds of doctors in Aleppo have been killed. Dr. Farida, there are I think about only 35 of you working in a population of about 300,000 people. I'm wondering… Why do you choose to stay?

DOCTOR FARIDA: If I go, the obstetricians here… They can’t work with all these numbers of women. Just one obstetrician can’t help about 150 women, 150,000 women, just one obstetrician. This region have to have about 10 doctors, 10 obstetricians. We have just about two or three.

RB: You have a young daughter of your own, Dr. Farida. I think she's seven years old. What do you say to her when there is bombing outside and she's afraid?

DOCTOR FARIDA: I just tell her to go to the safest place at home and I give her something to play with and just not to care about these voices and these things. She stays at the bathroom or—we don't have a shelter at our house so she stays at the bathroom. And we try not to make her afraid. And then we are like this for five years. It's not a new situation.

RB: Do you see a future for your daughter in Aleppo?

DOCTOR FARIDA: No. No. I don't see her future here. I have to make her go out. Imagine your daughter who has to go to school and there’s no schools in your city. Imagine what you can do. For myself, I don't care but my daughter is—my daughter, she’s a piece of me. I can't make her always stay here. If we accommodate with the bombs or fears or everything but we can’t accommodate with no schools or no teaching or she will be—will leave and ignore us. No. It's a very bad decision.

RB: Dr. Farida, you said that you do not have the supplies you need to help these women give birth. And Russia says that it would respect a short two-day ceasefire in order to get humanitarian aid into Aleppo. How useful would a ceasefire that's only two days be to you?

DOCTOR FARIDA: It will be good if there is a ceasefire just to have supplies to our hospitals because they didn't enter any supplies. We are working in a very bad circumstances. The women here don't—the nutrition is very bad. And then the medications are not existed for everyone.

RB: Dr. Farida, when you go to bed at night at the end of the day, what are you thinking about?

DOCTOR FARIDA: [chuckles] I’ll tell you. I think about escaping from Aleppo but I can’t. Then I think about this people, I find it’s better to stay and God will help us and protect us.

RB: Dr. Farida, please stay safe. Thank you very much for your time.

DOCTOR FARIDA: Thank you. Thank you.

RB: Dr. Farida is an obstetrician-gynecologist working at a hospital in Aleppo, Syria. Humanitarian workers outside Aleppo are facing their own set of challenges trying to get aid to those suffering in the city while at the same time keeping those people making the deliveries of supplies safe. Dr. Abdolsalam Daif is the country director for Syria Relief and Development. That's a US-based group that's trying to get aid into Aleppo. Dr. Daif himself worked at an Aleppo hospital for over a decade, leaving only a month ago. He joins us on the line from Gaziantep, Turkey. Hello.

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: Hello.

RB: What challenges are you facing trying to get aid into Aleppo right now?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: The main challenge now for us, for me as a doctor and for us as a non-government organization: access. This is the main challenge for us and the other challenge is attacks on all humanitarian facility, even a hospital, a medical facility or another facility like bakeries and markets. You know that now the only open road is Alramousa but it’s very dangerous road because this road is targeted daily many times and many people was dead through last week on this road.

RB: What type of aid has your organization succeeded in delivering?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: Unfortunately since one week ago, many organizations prepared many shipments to be ready to enter Aleppo city. But a little of this shipment could be transferred to inside of Aleppo city. Some of shipment for vegetables and food and some drugs could be able to go inside of Aleppo city. But recently, this access was very dangerous because many of this shipment was targeted on this road for many organization.

RB: When you say the shipments are being targeted, targeted by whom?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: There is many, many airplane inside of Syria sky but the main airplane which attacked this shipment is Syrian government and Russia. We couldn't separate between them but you know that another groups inside of Syria haven't airplanes so we expect that regime and Russia, they attacked this shipment.

RB: We just spoke to Dr. Farida and she said she is missing some crucial medical supplies. You as a doctor must know that. When you talk to your colleagues who are still in Aleppo, what do they tell you about how dire the situation is?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: Situation is miserable and very bad now especially in health situation. Now we talk about just less than 30 doctors are still working inside of Aleppo city and these doctors try to help out to provide medical service to a population about 300,000. And unfortunately, many of these cases didn’t receive service because lack of staff and lack of some specialists like neurosurgery and vascular surgery. They tried to select some cases between of injury. They are able to provide medical services to them but other cases, just they are waiting them to die.

RB: What has to happen then, for your organization to be able to properly help the people of Aleppo?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: The organization now, now we have many injuries, severe injury between civilian people are stuck inside of Aleppo city. So it is the main priority to evacuate this patient outside of Aleppo city and transport, transfer this patient, even to Turkey or another hospital in rural Aleppo or Idlib. This is one of our priorities. Also, most of Aleppo hospitals and medical facility suffer from a lack of equipment, lack of drugs, lack of stuff so we ask all organization to ask your agency and other government, American government, USA government and Russia government to secure safe access to Aleppo city in order to provide some kind of support like equipment, drugs and also in order to help other doctors to enter Aleppo city.

RB: What is your biggest fear of what might happen if aid supplies do not get in?

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: First of all, I am afraid on my friends inside the Aleppo city now. I am afraid for you know that this river of blood is continual and I am afraid that Syria will not be like—I am afraid about future of Syria. I'm afraid about future of children inside of Syria. You know that no education now inside of Syria and there is not any facility can help children and girls and women inside of Syria so I am afraid that this generation will be joined to another groups like jihadists. So I am afraid about Syria’s future.

RB: Dr. Daif, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.

DOCTOR ABDOLSALAM DAIF: Thank you for you.

RB: That was Dr. Abdolsalam Daif. He is the Turkey Country Director for Syria Relief and Development which is a US-based group trying to get aid into Aleppo. And we reached him in Gaziantep, Turkey. Well, let's hear now from one more doctor who has been in Aleppo providing medical care for people wounded in the conflict. Dr. Zaher Sahloul is a critical care physician from Chicago and a member of the Syrian American Medical Society. He has traveled to Aleppo numerous times in recent years and we have reached Dr. Sahloul at home in Chicago. Doctor, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

DOCTOR ZAHER SAHLOUL: Thank you for having me.

RB: What was going through your mind as you listen to Dr. Farida, first in Aleppo and Dr. Daif just now?

DOCTOR ZAHER SAHLOUL: The horror that these physicians have to be put through not only for one day or two days but for the past five years in a big city, historic city like Aleppo. This is a city of five million people before the crisis. Now divided between the government side that has 1.5 million and the opposition side that has 300,000 down from 1.5 million, that means 1.2 million of these people are right now displaced or refugees and these physicians are begging not only to leave but to stay. But they wanted also help and they're asking the world for two things: protection of themselves and the patients and the nurses which is something that the world has guaranteed to medical professionals 150 years ago in Geneva Convention. It's enshrined in international humanitarian law. So when we see that a doctor like Dr. Farida, that her hospital has been bombed several times and that she has to worry about protection of her patient, each one of these bombing is a war crime. Every patient who dies in Aleppo or other cities in Syria—and there are many other cities that are under attack by the Syrian government and Russia—is a war crime, every patient who does not have access to a hospital or they have an injury and die. And the second thing they are begging for is access so they can get medicine and medical supplies to their patients.

RB: And how optimistic are you that a ceasefire will happen any time soon?

DOCTOR ZAHER SAHLOUL: What we have learned in the Syrian crisis, unfortunately, that yes, people you know voice concern and especially UN officials and sometimes anger. But these statements are not translated into reality for whatever reasons. This deadlock between the United States and Russia, the fact that people are indifferent to what's happening to the Syrian people and the Syrian children, the fact that the international community have lost credibility in the eyes of the Syrian people and also in the world. So these statements—you know doctors in Aleppo wrote a letter to President Obama just a couple of weeks ago and they ask him for no statement, no condemnation, not even a prayer but they wanted facts on the ground. They wanted protection and access. So I'm not very optimistic and if we're talking about 48-hour ceasefire, why not make it 48 days? Why not give these people a chance to go to hospitals? These doctors got to—

RB: Doctor, you have suggested that establishing safe zones would be effective. Can you just briefly describe how those would work?

DOCTOR ZAHER SAHLOUL: Safe zones are things that I have done in prior conflicts by the international community. And usually you have UN observers on the ground and then you designate areas as no bombing zones. So anyone who can violate that will bear the consequences. And this is something that is doable, was done in Bosnia and many areas, it was done in northern Iraq. There are many entities that can enforce that, whether it's the United Nations or NATO or coalition troops and this is something that has to be considered in Syria.

RB: Why do you think that people in places like Canada and the United States are not agitating more for our governments to help people in Syria?

DOCTOR ZAHER SAHLOUL: I think this is something that we have really to reflect on as societies. We don't see that much, that pouring sympathy to the Syrian people the same way that we have seen that to the people of Haiti when they had the earthquake or other parts of the war or even during Bosnia or Darfur crisis or Rwanda. Maybe part of it is the Islamophobia. You know there was an you know an article talks about why Syria needs an earthquake and among other things, the author of the article mentioned Islamophobia, that we have less sympathy to children or people who are Muslims after 9/11. It could be the cause, could be because this is a manmade disaster been going on for six years. It could be because that there is too many parties involved in Syria. It could be as a reaction to Iraqi war. There are many things that is affecting our reaction. But I think as citizens, we should really reflect on these issues because what's happening in Syria is not only affecting Syrians, it's affecting us also. The refugee crisis, the entire refugee sentiment, the terrorism—all of this is stemming from Syria.

RB: Well, Doctor, I appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much for joining us. That was Dr. Zaher Sahloul. He's a critical care physician from Chicago and a member of the Syrian American Medical Society. He travelled to Aleppo recently to offer his medical services numerous times over the course of the Civil War. The Current did contact the Honorary Consul for Syria in British Columbia for comment on the situation in Aleppo but did not hear back. Well, the news is coming up next. Then, few jobs in this country come with more power and prestige than being a Superior Court judge. We will hear from one of those. I'm Robyn Bresnahan and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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ENCORE: Retired judge Marie Corbett reflects on feeling 'powerless over crime'

Guests: Marie Corbett

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Hello, I’m Robyn Bresnahan and you’re listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Dedicated. Outstanding. And inspirational. Just some of the words used by her nominators to describe Madam Justice, Marie Corbett.

RB: From two decades ago, that was the YWCA presenting Marie Corbett with a Women of Distinction award. She was an Ontario Superior Court judge at the time who was known for her judicial acumen and her activism.

SOUNDCLIP

MARIE CORBETT: The pace of social change is slow. Women have been legal persons for a mere 60 years. 1993 is the 50th anniversary of the appointment of the first woman judge. A second was not appointed by the Government of Canada until 1965, another 22 years. Only three women who have been appointed judges by the Government of Canada have so far died. Our history is still with us. Every woman here is a pioneer.

RB: A mere five years later, Marie Corbett retired from the bench at the age of 55 and she reflects on that decision to leave her distinguished post in her memoir, January: A Woman Judge’s Season of Disillusion. Marie Corbett spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in April.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: We don't often hear from former judges—why is that?

MARIE CORBETT: Judges are schooled in being circumspect and in being discreet and they tend to speak through their cases. We do not wish judges to become personalities and it is a discipline of being a judge. [laughs]

AMT: A lot of judges don't leave either, do they?

MARIE CORBETT: Judges do not leave, yes. Historically, on average, male judges were appointed at age 55 and then were entitled to a full pension at 65, 15 years later. As well, judges can go supernumerary at that point, which is a form of part-time judging. And that can be done for another ten years. It became a little different when women were appointed to the bench because women on average were appointed 10 years earlier so that, in a sense, they work longer in order to enjoy the benefits of retirement. So, I suppose by the time a judge retired from the bench at age 75, there was not a lot of creative energy left.

AMT: Well, you did leave the bench and your decision was sparked by the death of your friend. Tell us about Anne.

MARIE CORBETT: Anne was a woman lawyer. She died at age 46. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. And when she had that diagnosis, she made a decision that she would continue to live life as she had, fully—fully engaged as a lawyer, as a mother, as a wife and especially as a member of the community. She founded Wellspring while she was suffering from cancer, three years before her death and there are now many cancer support centres in Canada that she started. She founded Wellspring because when she was diagnosed with cancer, she had nowhere to turn and she realized that there was a need not just for cancer patients, but also for the families of cancer, and that's how it was born.

AMT: You were very involved at the end of her life. What was it about that experience that made you rethink your work as a judge?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, I saw Anne as an engaged, active woman and I think when a friend that you love dies at an early age, it does cause you to re-evaluate how you want to live. And when Anne decided to live life in the same way as she did before, I realized that I did not. Law, at that time, was consuming me and I cared about other aspects of myself and life and decided to change my life.

AMT: You have talked about feeling powerless and I was really surprised at that word because I would think that being a judge is a position with all kinds of power.

MARIE CORBETT: It is very much a position of power and prestige and importance and it's a valuable public role. I think I was overwhelmed by powerlessness, first in the case of Anne, because she was powerless over her cancer. And then in a way, I was powerless too, over what came before me. I was powerless over crime. I kind of looked at crime and cancer as flip sides of the coin. One was a physical pathology and one was a social pathology. I often think of doctors and lawyers as the other side of the same coin. They are both service professions—one deals with the physical, one deals with the social, more or less. And I was powerless over crime. In addition, I—throughout my career—had been very, as you described it, active. I cared what happened to women in matrimonial law and upon marriage breakdown. I cared that workers got their full pensions and that they had vesting and portability rights. I cared about the environment and worked hard to have the very first Environmental Protection Act enacted in Ontario. I was a member of the first Status of Women Council in Ontario. And I cared about the problems that women had specifically. And when I became a judge, I didn't stop caring but I was powerless to do anything about it, in a sense. For example, I describe four cases in the book that were—I was involved in at the time. And the first one was a sexual assault case with a young girl. She was 16 at the time that she was giving her evidence and she described a history of sexual touching.

AMT: This is the young woman named Alma that you had found.

MARIE CORBETT: That’s Alma, yes. And she was the only witness in the case and the defence called evidence and the accused took the stand, and of course, not of course, but he denied it and as well, his evidence was supported by another witness. At the end of the case, I concluded that while I believed Alma, I was not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the sexual assault was proved beyond a reasonable doubt and I acquitted the accused. But I cared for Alma. I was concerned. I thought my goodness, what's going to happen to her? I pictured and hoped that her social worker or case worker would say to her, “Well, Alma, the judge believed you but didn't find the accused guilty.” And I wondered how would Alma deal with that? And yet I knew legally, I was on sound ground. Her evidence was too unreliable to convict the accused. You don't stop caring when you're a judge but you are circumscribed by your role.

AMT: There's so much to ask about in what you've just answered, so let's pick a little bit of this apart and go back to that idea of power. How did you view your job when you first began and how did that change as you went along?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, when I was first appointed a judge, I was absolutely terrified. One of the first cases I had or duties was to decide whether somebody was mentally incompetent. And I thought oh my goodness, how can I possibly decide that? Well, eventually you do. I was also terrified of having to make judgments on whether people were lying or not. In ordinary life, we don't examine what people say with that scrutiny and yet you do. You have to find facts, you have to say so and so lied, or so and so didn't lie and it was extremely challenging. So therefore, yes, you do have a lot of power. You decide civil cases, you decide whether people are going to jail or not, whether people will be deprived of their liberty. It's extremely powerful in that sense. However, being an idealist, I probably became a judge thinking that I had more power to affect justice with a capital J and find truth with a capital T. I came to realize that my role was much more narrow in a sense. My primary duty was to ensure, and is to ensure, that an accused person has a fair trial. It's not an inquiry into the whole truth of something that happened before. It's not your role to dispense an overall justice for all the parties that come before you. You decide the case that comes before you in accordance with the law.

AMT: You talk about the robes you had to wear as being particularly heavy after certain difficult cases. What do you mean by that?

MARIE CORBETT: In a way, I always felt like I was wearing men's clothes walking into a court to administer men's laws. It's the uniform that's been worn by judges for centuries and I have no problem with it but it is somewhat intricate. In the United States, the judges merely put a robe over whatever clothes they're wearing. But as you know, in Canada, it's a little more complicated.

AMT: When you finished a case and you felt that heaviness, what was it like for you emotionally?

MARIE CORBETT: It can be very draining. You can get a satisfaction that you've done a good job. I consider that I was a good judge and a good lawyer and being a judge and a lawyer involves a lot of thinking. I mean, emotion really has no part in the adjudication of court cases. If you're feeling emotional during a case, you should excuse yourself and take a break. It's not the function of a judge to be emotional and yet it's a very large part of our lives.

AMT: And I would imagine that you take some emotion home that you weren't allowed to show.

MARIE CORBETT: That's right. I remember when I was first appointed and we had a women judges’ dinner. One woman said well, Marie, you just can't take it home with you and I said to her—probably a bit abruptly—that if I couldn't take it home, then I didn't want to do it. So, I really felt I had an obligation for that to stay with me. It does stay with you. A lot of the trauma and the sorrow and tragedy that is experienced by people is shocking.

AMT: You know, I think we forget there's a lot of very raw emotion before a judge in a courtroom every day, right?

MARIE CORBETT: There is, yes. I've had cases where a married couple broke the major bones of their newborn baby, every major bone. I had a six-year-old girl—I watched her plaiting and unplaiting the ears of her bunny as she wouldn't look over the witness stand at the accused. I had witnesses who were victimized by the husband physically and sexually and she permitted him, in a sense, to do the same to the children. And she was so traumatized that when she walked across the street, she would carry a hat pin so that she would stick herself so that she wouldn't go back into unconsciousness or blackout. And these people don't go away. Their tragedy doesn't go away. They live rent free in your [uncomfortable chuckle] brain.

AMT: Hmm. That’s an interesting way to put it. What was it like for you writing a book when you had to describe how it felt going through an emotional time, when for so long you had to keep your emotions hidden?

MARIE CORBETT: Oh, it was very, very difficult. I have written a lot of legal articles and of course, legal judgments and write in a very succinct style. To be writing creatively requires getting in touch with your emotions. And I remember my editor saying to me well, what was Marie feeling? And I'd say back, feeling? I mean, I really almost didn't know. In fact, I took three acting courses in order to become more aware of my own emotions and to find out how to express them in order to write the book.

AMT: That's extraordinary. I understand why the law needs to be—you have to take a step back and you can't let emotion intervene. At the same time, the law deals with true crime. It deals with sensationalism. It deals with emotion and trauma at its most acute point.

MARIE CORBETT: Yes, it does. Indeed.

AMT: So, is that a contradiction, that emotion can have no part in it? Or is that a dangerous, slippery slope?

MARIE CORBETT: Oh, you can't have emotion. [chuckles] You have to use reason. I mean, the doubt in a criminal case, it's not an emotional doubt, it's a reasonable doubt. You have to be sure of the guilt. Emotion really should not at all play a part, and we so instruct jurors that emotion really has no play. You have to decide the case on the evidence only that's in the trial, and really, I had no difficulty with that. I've been intellectual all my life. I've used my brain all my life. It comes naturally, in a sense. Or it came naturally to me. I wasn't an emotional person.

AMT: You also weren't happy. You actually write at one point that you didn't know a female judge who was happy.

MARIE CORBETT: I think I said that I didn't know anyone that was having any fun. [laughs]

AMT: Okay. [laughs]

MARIE CORBETT: Like we weren't having fun—

AMT: I’m projecting, then.

MARIE CORBETT: Yes.

AMT: But it's still pretty heavy to say that.

MARIE CORBETT: Well, it's how I felt. I didn't feel like I was having any fun. I described my life pretty accurately at that time and it wasn't fun. And I should add that being happy or having fun was never a goal in my life. I was extremely career driven and in fact, in my 20s, I didn't want to get married or have children. So whenever I accomplished something, I felt proud and I was thrilled, for example, to be appointed a judge. I came from a coastal village in Newfoundland and was the first person in my family to go to university and I worked my way through university as a cocktail waitress and a ballroom dance teacher and then even when I went to law school in Toronto, I was a cocktail waitress at the Blue Orchid on Bloor St., terrified that some law students might see me working there. So, it was a thrill and an honour to be a judge. But if you asked me if I was happy, I wouldn't have known what to say. I was proud. I felt good. I was thrilled. And it was never one of my goals. I wanted to be successful. [chuckles] I wanted a career.

AMT: And it was because of the death of a friend and then all of this culmination of things that made you re-examine what—

MARIE CORBETT: Exactly. And realize—

[crosstalk]

AMT: —what happened.

MARIE CORBETT: Yes, that’s right. I realized that law was dominant in my life and yet, there were so many other things to do. For example, I sat in a windowless box for 13 years and I craved the beauty of nature, I craved the outdoors and didn't have that.

AMT: Well, let's talk a little bit more about being in the windowless box because you had talked about Alma and a sex assault case. She reaches you in court at about the age of 17 but this is a case that goes back to her early childhood. And you did come to some conclusions with that story. What did that story tell you about how complainants are treated in court?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, complainants, essentially, are like any other witness. There is a legal vacuum with respect to complainants. And the victim, or sexual assault victim, has no clear rights in criminal law. The rights are that an accused person is presumed innocent and is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And the problem is exacerbated by the nature of the adversarial system. It's one side against the other. It's not an inquiry. The lawyers decide which witnesses will be called and what evidence will be put before the court. In one-witness cases, be it a child or an adult, witnesses are subject to excruciating cross-examination. This is typical. Cross-examination in any matter is not pleasant and it is an extremely difficult ordeal. I think few of us can withstand a detailed cross-examination on intimate matters in our lives. It's most unpleasant.

AMT: Who is the trial really for, then?

MARIE CORBETT: The trial is for the accused, there's no question. The trial is to enable the Crown to prove that the allegations are accurate and that his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.

AMT: You have made the point that your goal, of course, is to ensure there's a fair trial for a defendant as a judge. But complainants and victims don't have a right to a fair trial.

MARIE CORBETT: That's correct.

AMT: But just to be clear, your disillusionment with the bench was not based solely on cases involving sexual assault.

MARIE CORBETT: No. At the time, I was doing mostly criminal law and I realized that my role really was limited.

AMT: So, what were you seeing that was making you realize that increasingly?

MARIE CORBETT: I probably had too much exposure to the victims of crime and I felt I could do little about it. I also saw that 98 per cent of perpetrators of violent crimes were men, and that was distressing. There is a lot of disrespect for women in the culture and I felt I could do more by writing and having a new life than continuing to do the same things in the criminal justice system.

AMT: And when you decided to step away, when you decided to retire, what was the reaction?

MARIE CORBETT: There was shock. [chuckles] I think there’s probably not even five judges who have ever retired early. I think there is only one other woman that has retired early as well. It's rare. And it's rare because obviously, being a judge is a very important position. It's intellectually challenging, it's extremely interesting, so why would you leave it?

AMT: You have always spent a good part of your life as well, involved in promoting women and their success in the legal field. What kind of barriers did you face?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, you must remember that when I was appointed a judge, women were three per cent of the judiciary. Basically, it was just like entering law school. We were freaks, in a way. You can imagine that men and judges who were accustomed to being amongst themselves, in the dining room of judges and in the common room and coffee rooms of judges, only being in the company of men and all of a sudden, there are women. Women have not been in public life until the second half of the 20th century. So, the interaction between men and women in public life is new. It's an ongoing process, it's an ongoing process for lawyers too, how to interact with each other in a professional environment. And it doesn't come overnight. A lot of women judges, for example, and perhaps anywhere, become what I call male equivalents—that you can't say that this is a female thing or this is a male thing and of course, justice doesn't have a male or female face and it can't, but there are realities to the fact that you are working in a male-dominated workplace. Women judges at the outset had some of the same problems that any other career woman has in a male-dominated profession.

AMT: And you've been retired for 20 years—do you think it's changed in that time?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, as I read the newspapers and the press, not a lot has changed, no. I have no problem, for example, when I was first a judge, a lot of women would say oh, I don't want tokenism, I want to get it on my own merit. My view at the time was and it still is, it doesn't matter if it's tokenism, take it. You have to get there. You have to be out there. I used to give speeches to law students and tell them you have a right to be just as mediocre as any man. [chuckles] We are always telling ourselves that we have to be better than men or do a job better. Well, actually, we don't. We shouldn't have that guilt that we have to do better. We can be ordinary.

AMT: And on a personal level, you lost a dear friend. You left your job. You divorced. You wanted to have another life. What does that life look like now?

MARIE CORBETT: Well, I write, I travel and I'm happy. [chuckles] And I exercise. I'm healthier than I was. I always wanted to tap dance, so I do and I have—what I consider now—a very engaged and happy life.

AMT: And do you look back on the legal life that you had before and miss it at all?

MARIE CORBETT: I was in law for 30 years and I can say that I do not miss it at all.

AMT: Marie Corbett, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

MARIE CORBETT: Thank you very much for having me.

RB: That was retired judge Marie Corbett speaking with Anna Maria in April. Her memoir is titled January: A Woman Judge’s Season of Disillusion. Well, that is our program for today. Tomorrow on The Current, we will look into the Trudeau government’s controversial decision to support the Site C Dam in British Columbia despite opposition from some First Nations. We will hear from Caleb Behn, who is a Dene lawyer in BC. His own parents fought a similar fight in the 1980s. So we will hear from Caleb on tomorrow’s program. I’m Robyn Bresnahan. Thanks very much for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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August 23, 2016 full episode transcript

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