Thursday, January 13, 2005
Diplomat's Wife Can't Experience Abuse?
Today I got to attend my first Federal Court hearing... it was another refugee matter... a case where a woman had experienced domestic violence from her ex-husband and claimed refugee protection in Canada. The original refugee board member had turned her down saying her story wasn't credible, mostly because this woman was a diplomat's wife. (She was a diplomat's wife from an African country)
I couldn't believe that decision-makers could apply stereotypes about what type of women get abused by their husbands. She made alot of assumptions about the type of women who are diplomat's wives and basically used the "why wouldn't she just leave if it was so bad" argument. Anyway, today was the judicial review of this decision... and it went very well! Basically the judge was interrupting my boss to agree with her, and interrupting the other lawyer to tell her that what she was saying wasn't relevant. No official decision yet, but afterwards, the lawyer for the Department of Justice shook hands with my boss and said "Congratulations... I think you just won your case!"
I couldn't believe that decision-makers could apply stereotypes about what type of women get abused by their husbands. She made alot of assumptions about the type of women who are diplomat's wives and basically used the "why wouldn't she just leave if it was so bad" argument. Anyway, today was the judicial review of this decision... and it went very well! Basically the judge was interrupting my boss to agree with her, and interrupting the other lawyer to tell her that what she was saying wasn't relevant. No official decision yet, but afterwards, the lawyer for the Department of Justice shook hands with my boss and said "Congratulations... I think you just won your case!"
