The patience of men

Montréal, May 02, 2004

Mr. Dupuis,

The laxism which currently prevails in Quebec in the field of the
criminal and family justice cannot be ignored any longer. Fathers are
ejected from their homes on the basis of spurious allegation. Without
mercy, the men are straightforwardly sent into hellish prison cells
before appearing handcuffed in front of obliging judges of the Québec
Court who pronounce sentences against them before trial. Thus
innocent men, responsible fathers and often principal financial
supports of their families, are excluded from the life of their
siblings and become candidates to suicide. However, these arbitrary
measures, aimed exclusively at men, presumed guilty, only represent a
preamble in an endless litany of kafkaïen injustice intended to
destroy them, both financially and psychologically. These
totalitarian measures, systematically enforced by the police,
contravene to the provisions of all the laws of this country. They
cause serious damages to those who live though them and are certainly
unworthy of any society. Treated like criminals, on the basis of
simple allegation based on hearsay, deposited without any witness or
element corroborating in the support of the claims of the plaintiffs,
the accused men will have to squander the savings of a whole life in
exorbitant professional fees, trying in vain to have access to
fundamental justice.

The judges, firmly commited to the orthodoxy of the political
correctness, under the pressure carried out by special interest
groups, seem to follow instructions coming directly from the highest
authorities. They openly scorn the basic human rights of those men
appearing before them. In doing so, the magistrates avoid the
representatives of the public ministry to have to answer of their
behaviour within the framework of civil liability lawsuits, such as
the law prescribes. The motion of appeal against their fallacious
judgements are automatically rejected, without motive.

In parallel, the penal charges are used as powerful levers to
influence the decisions rendered in favour of the plaintiffs in the
civil procedures in family right which inevitably follow allegations
of domestic violence. As soon as an ordinance is issued by these
courts, the child support agency intervenes to grab at source a
ransom to the benefit of the perpetrator which succeeded in
kidnapping the children of the couple with the blessing and the
complicity of the state. After being thrown on the sidewalk, denied
access to their children, ruined after useless and futile legal
procedures, the wagearners have to deal with the harassing of the
child support collector on behalf of the state. They are promptly
ripped of a substantial fraction of their incomes by this public
agency, intended to provide for the needs of offsprings which they
are, most of the time, cruelly deprived by ordinance from the court.
To make matter even worst, they are called deadbeat dads!

Unfortunately, this sad record represents the ill fate reserved to
men in a society who does not respect them. Most of the time, their
only wrong will have been to give their blessing to a woman who was
not worthy, the mother of their children. In addition, these misdeeds
also occur because the state authorizes them by systematically
criminalizing all the files of alleged domestic violences, without
any consideration to the facts and in spite of the obviousnesses,
thus opening very wide the door to false accusations. Moreover, never
guilty people of such public mischief, however sanctioned by section
140 of the criminal code, will have to answer for their wrongdoing at
the tribunal.

The `Journal de Montréal' published, on April 06th, the conclusions
of the Rondeau report entitled "The men: opening to their realities
and meeting their needs ", written by a team group of research and
handled to the Minister for Health, Mr. Philippe Couillard last
January. One can read in it " it is more than time that Quebec
engages unambiguously and really takes into account the multiple
difficulties which confront numerous men".

The patience of men starts to wither in front of the misdemeanour
ascribable to the very officers working at the core of the
institutions whose mandate precisely consists in ensuring the healthy
administration of justice. The problem exposed in this open letter
represents one of the determining elements identified by the writers
of the famous report. Who hinder the essential rectification work to
the good tenure of this society? Who may find it beneficial to lie?
How many innocent men will have to still pass through the killing
machine, expressly designed to crush male, before you intervened?
Because of the implementation of these cruel and inhuman policies,
every man who takes his own life leaves an indelible spot in our
collective conscience. The blood of the innocent men has been spilled
enough. Your mandate, as Justice Minister, command you to act without
delay. You cannot pretend ignorance. It's a matter of imputability.

Hermil LeBel