Rose DiManno (of whom I never heard before) wrote an
essay on
apropos of the Jian Ghomeshi 'story'. An excerpt:
Sexual assault victims don't have the luxury of averting the ordeal. Without their testimony there is no case.
Those brave enough to make a police complaint, knowing they must submit to invasive investigation yet still courageous enough to testify, are routinely shredded, attacked on credibility, depicted as promiscuous or morning-after regretful.
Cross-examination is by definition confrontational. This is justified as getting at the truth but it's really about blurring the truth. It's about poking holes of doubt and then stretching them so that the entire case is rendered misshapen. He said. She said. But what he says -- or doesn't say, if the accused stays off the stand -- is held to a higher standard of reliability. What she says is vehemently dismantled.
I wonder if she thinks that only the cross-examination of female complaining witnesses is "really about blurring the truth" and when a woman is the accused, then cross-examination of the complaining witness (man or woman) is an entirely appropriate method of getting at the truth.
