Judge education needed: Ambrose
PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. — The mother of a British Columbia teenager who took her own life after enduring cyberbullying says it’s “just surreal” that the Dutch man charged in her daughter’s case has been approved for extradition to Canada.
“Today is my birthday and this is the best birthday present ever,” Amanda Todd’s mother Carol Todd said from her home in Port Coquitlam.
The Dutch Supreme Court has approved the extradition of Aydin Coban. The RCMP laid charges of extortion, importing or distributing child pornography, possessing child pornography and child luring against the 38-year-old in 2014, two years after Amanda Todd, who was 15, died by suicide.
None of the allegations have been tested in a Canadian court.
It was not immediately clear when Coban would be sent to Canada. His extradition must be approved by the Dutch security and justice minister.
Coban was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison last month by a Dutch court in a separate case. The court in the Netherlands convicted him for fraud and blackmail via the Internet for cyberbullying dozens of young girls and gay men.
Judges gave him the maximum possible sentence “because of the devastating consequences his behaviour has on the young lives of the girls.” He was accused of abusing 34 girls and five gay men, behaviour the court called “astonishing.” In some cases, the abuse lasted years.
He is appealing the court ruling and that process could also take months to complete.
Coban’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Under Dutch privacy laws, the man at that trial was only identified as Aydin C. However, an Associated Press story from the Netherlands on Tuesday reported Aydin C. is the same man charged in the Amanda Todd case
If the case related to Amanda Todd is heard in a Vancouverarea courtroom, Carol Todd said it has the potential to change the way authorities fight cyber crime by paving the way for alleged perpetrators to be extradited.
She urged anyone who believes they are being victimized by a cyberbully to report it to police.
“Things can be done. When you hear ’We can’t find the person, they are hiding behind barriers online,’ we know now that isn’t always the case. There are ways to dig deeper and find perpetrators,” she said.
Amanda Todd brought cyberbullying to mainstream attention by posting a video on YouTube in 2012 in which she told her story in a series of handwritten signs, describing how she was lured by a stranger to expose her breasts on a webcam.
The picture ended up on a Facebook page made by the stranger, and she was repeatedly bullied, despite changing schools. She took her own life weeks after posting the video.
OTTAWA — Changes the Liberals have made to the way judges are appointed would not necessarily prevent someone who believes in stereotypes about sexual assault cases from presiding over one of those trials, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said Tuesday.
Ambrose went before the House of Commons status of women committee to discuss her private member’s bill that would require anyone who wanted to be considered for an appointment to the bench to undergo comprehensive training in sexual assault law.
The bill, C-337, would also require the Canadian Judicial Council to report on continuing education courses in matters related to sexual assault law and change the Criminal Code to make courts provide written decisions in sexual assault cases.
There were some tense moments, as Liberal MPs pointed out that it was a Conservative justice minister who appointed Robin Camp, who asked a sexual assault complainant in a trial why she couldn’t keep her knees together, to the Federal Court.
Camp, who was a provincial court judge in Alberta when he made the comments, resigned from the Federal Court last month.
Ambrose said her bill is not about assigning blame, but about making sure judges have better training.
“I would watch your comments, because you have no idea what some judge might say or has said or done, that your government might appoint,” Ambrose told Liberal MP Pam Damoff. “These people are supposed to be capable of the job.”
Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld said the federal government had designed a new, merit-based appointments process, with independent judicial advisory committees whose members have undergone training in diversity, unconscious bias and how to assess merit.
Referring to Camp, Vandenbeld asked: “Do you think that that kind of appointment would happen under the current system that our government implemented?”
“There’s a very good chance it would,” Ambrose replied.
“I have seen people appointed who came with incredible CVs and then do things that surprised everyone,” she said.
“So it’s not enough. It’s just not enough,” she said. “You can’t control who applies . ... So at the end of the day, regardless of who gets through those committees, we need them to have training.”
The terse exchange aside, the proposed legislation has broad support from all sides of the House of Commons, where MPs voted unanimously last month to fast-track it and send it straight to committee.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the time there is room for improvement.
“We need to make sure that we are doing a much better job than we are right now and that is why I look forward to parliamentarians having an opportunity to discuss ways in which we are going to be able to improve it, including with the member’s bill,” Trudeau said March 8.
The 2017 budget proposes $2.7 million over five years, plus $500,000 annually afterwards, for the Canadian Judicial Council to support training on ethics and conduct for federally appointed judges, while also ensuring access to professional development that is genderand culturally sensitive.
Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef has not said whether she will support the bill, but she told the committee last month that the federal government does not have the jurisdiction to mandate training.
In a statement sent by e-mail Tuesday, Monsef said she welcomed Ambrose’s “understanding and appreciation of the severity of the systemic barriers faced by survivors of sexual assault,” but did not further clarify where she stands on the bill, beyond saying she is “pleased” the committee is studying it.