Robin Camp judicial hearing ends after five days in Calgary
Posted Sep 12, 2016 6:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The five-day hearing for Federal Justice Robin Camp wrapped up in Calgary Monday, with closing arguments over his controversial comments to a sex assault complainant in 2014.
At issue is whether Camp should be removed from the bench for comments he made during a sex assault case in 2014, when he asked a complainant why she just didn’t keep her knees together during the alleged attack.
Macleans Magazine Alberta Correspondent Jason Markusoff said Camp’s defense argued there’s two versions of the judge.
“There’s not just this guy who said some really awful things, by his own definition they were disgraceful, there’s not just that one guy,” he said. “There’s the other camp who is the future Camp, they called him the future Robin Camp, the one who has apologized, who has gone through intensive training and rehabilitation and won’t make these mistakes.”
“On the other side they said, we can’t be so sure of that.”
Marjorie Hickey told a Canadian Judicial Council panel weighing Camp’s fate that his comments while he was a provincial court judge are enough to — quote — “shock the conscience and shake the confidence of the public.”
Hickey says the panel Camp’s apology and his willingness to educate himself are mitigating factors.
But she says it’s debatable how much Camp learned.
Hickey says he called the complainant a “fragile personality” during the hearing despite her courage to participate in her sexual assault trial and the hearing.
Camp’s lawyer says the judge had an “education problem, not a character problem” and has gone to great lengths to learn about sexual assault.
Camp has also apologized for what he called his “rude and insulting” attitude toward the 19-year-old woman.
Court transcripts from the 2014 sexual assault trial show he told the woman that “pain and sex sometimes go together” and referred to her as “the accused” — a mistake he repeated during the disciplinary hearing before quickly correcting himself.
Markusoff explained a notable exchange on the last day.
“In Robin Camp’s defense, the lawyers said there are pervasive rape myths in our judicial system, it’s not just Judge Camp and the people on the panels including some judges said, ‘can you prove that?'” he said. “And they couldn’t.”
Markusoff said based on past cases, it’s expected there will be a recommendation to the Canadian Judicial Council from the committee in a matter of weeks.
