This legal soap opera badly needs subtitles

A Nunavik travelling court session at Kuujjuaq’s courthouse provides the worst level of drama possible— because it’s real. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ —The action that unfolds in Kuujjuaq’s courthouse on Sept. 14 is like a legal drama scripted for prime-time television.

But it’s real, a gripping soap opera in which the actors change, but the plot line stays depressingly the same.

The social problems in Nunavik’s communities and the foreignness of northern Quebec’s travelling court system are revealed during the procession of case after case which came before the courts from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sept. 14.

First, there’s the utter strangeness of how people communicate that makes you wish you had subtitles to follow what’s happening.

During the travelling court’s proceedings, the accused, lawyers, judges and translators usually speak a foreign language— English— when they talk. For the lawyers and judges, their first language is French. For the Inuit, it’s Inuktitut.

And there’s the sad, often sordid tales of the accused, whose drinking, drugs and violence in their home communities lands them in court.

Most disturbing is the sight of smooth-faced, young women in hoodies and handcuffs in the glassed-in courtroom box reserved for the accused.

A woman, 22, from a community near Kuujjuaq stands in her green sweatshirt with her wrists handcuffed together. She’s in court because she rammed her cousin’s scooter with an all-terrain vehicle earlier this summer during a drunken fight.

Freed while out on bail facing charges for assault with a weapon (the ATV) she breaks her condition not to drink— not once— but three times.

Now she’s pregnant— and still drinking to excess, as recently as two days ago when she was arrested and detained.

The high school graduate, who’s juggling three jobs, tells the judge she won’t drink anymore and will go to AA meetings. She’s tried to stop drinking in the past, but “alcohol is always there,” she says.

After two days in jail, she’s ready to plead guilty to all charges.

The judge hands her a suspended sentence that includes community service and conditions. Show determination, the judge tells her, “and good luck.”

And then there’s a 21-year-old, a sweet-faced young woman with shiny hair, who hit her mother two times in a drunken fight and then went on to break her bail conditions as well— and she was also found with marijuana on her.

In detention for more than a week, she pleads guilty to all charges.

Before sentencing her, the judge asks a series of questions like “did you excuse yourself to your mother” and “since when do you drink so much.”

With the help of translators, the young woman finally understands. She says she’s been drinking since she was “very young,” and yes, she did apologize to her mother.

After a stern warning that she’ll end up in jail soon if she doesn’t change her ways, the judge gives her a suspended sentence and community service hours to complete.

Then a muscular young man, who threatened to burn a woman’s house down and to beat a man to death, has his turn before the court.

It’s not in his favour that he has a criminal record and when he was arrested this time, he had 71 grams of marijuana, worth $3,000, neatly packaged for sale in tin foil.

While he learns he’ll be going to jail for another 10 months, he brings up a folded towel in his handcuffed hands to wipe his face and eyes.

Another older man appears briefly: he broke his conditions of release by drinking because he says he didn’t know that he was to avoid alcohol.

No family members or friends or even people from the community are in the courtroom as this odd legal ritual is played out for four accused who seem to find the outcome as bewildering as the proceedings themselves.