One of a crown prosecutor’s most difficult roles is communicating with and managing the expectations of victims and families of victims in high profile criminal cases.
Our criminal justice system is set up in such a way that, when someone is charged with a criminal offence, it is the crown that is the opposing party rather than the victim.
Criminal cases are cited as Rv. (name of accused) to indicate that the accused person’s dispute is with Her Majesty the Queen, the Queen being the symbol for society generally.
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In the United States, the equivalent symbol is “The People.”
In Canada, the “R” stands for “Regina,” the Latin term for the Queen.
The job of the crown prosecutor is to present the crown’s evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the high standard necessary to produce a conviction.
The crown will have a number of witnesses in most criminal trials, usually including the victim of the crime.
However, the victim, who is often referred to as the complainant, is not the person who has the case against the accused person.
Sometimes a victim or his family may sue the criminally accused person in a civil action, in which the victim will be the plaintiff and the opposing party in the litigation. However, those proceedings are different and kept separate from the criminal proceedings.
It is important to remember that the victim of a crime is not a party in a criminal matter. That role is carried out on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen by the crown prosecutors.
What that means in practical terms is that the victim of a crime is not the crown prosecutor’s client. It is not the prosecutor’s job to advocate on behalf of that person or his family.
There are various agencies and legislation to provide assistance for victims of crime, but the purposes of the criminal justice system are much broader than to provide vindication for them.
According to Canada’s criminal code, objectives of the criminal justice system include denouncing unlawful conduct, deterring the offender and other persons from committing offences, separating offenders from society where necessary, assisting in rehabilitating offenders, promoting a sense of responsibility in offenders and providing reparations for harm done to victims or the community.
The media often portrays a criminal trial as a process over which the victim or the victim’s family has control. Victims are asked about their reaction to verdicts and sentencing, and their reaction is important.
However, it is only part of the process.
Although victims and their families must be, and generally are, treated with compassion and respect by the crown, those persons do not usually command a decision-making role in the conduct of the proceedings.
As a wise crown prosecutor has observed, victims and their families need to make use of counselling and other resources to help them deal with the impacts of the crime.
“If they are coming to the criminal trial just to find healing, peace or closure, that is probably not going to happen.”
