Before Canadian law did away with the corroboration rule (other evidence supporting the complaint of rape), and the doctrine of recent complaint (immediate complaining of the crime), it was more difficult to convict an innocent man for an alleged sexual offence wrongfully.
Like cases were treated alike. If there was no evidence a crime ever occurred, aside from the complaint itself, then there was likely no case and the risks of incarcerating innocent men were significantly reduced. At the time, ensuring innocent people weren’t incarcerated was fundamental to preserving the public’s trust in the criminal justice system. However, Victim’s Rights advocates of today look back on that as a time when women were not believed.
Where undeniable corroboration existed and the complaint fell within the statute of time limitations the case would proceed and likely result in a conviction.
Where there was other evidence a crime occurred, that evidence could be scrutinized by a judge or jury to determine its weight in proving the plausibility of the case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.
When those rigid safeguards were in place to protect against wrongful convictions, cases without supporting evidence of a crime were more likely to play out in a civil court context instead where the consequences of an accused person being found liable are not so insurmountable in comparison to a criminal conviction and possible life imprisonment sentence.
Out With the Old, In With the New Laws
Those safeguards existed during a time in Canada when men convicted of rape could be sentenced to life in prison, and sentenced to death for murder. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 and rape as a crime was abolished in 1983. Rape was then replaced by three different degrees of sexual assault accompanied by differing degrees of sentencing, removing life sentences from the equation. And the statute of (time) limitations was lifted.
Immediately after these major reforms in rape law, the courts and legislatures began grappling with interpretations of new laws in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and with reshaping the rules of evidence for proving offence elements that didn’t necessarily exist before.
Part of that reshaping included defining “sexual” and creating new contextual elements of offences to be proven. Elements like the capacity to consent in the context of intoxication, and consent in the context of how and what body part can be presumed to have been touched for a sexual purpose. (However, the burden has also since shifted onto the accused to prove he took reasonable steps to obtain consent for the aforementioned elements.)
Lifting the statute of limitations meant that anybody can now report a sex crime to the police no matter how long ago the alleged crimes took place. The time of having to provide proof that a sex crime took place became ancient history. Likewise, the time of being able to preserve any exonerating evidence became ancient history. Most people don’t keep records beyond five or ten years that could potentially provide undeniable alibis against allegations of crime.
In short, these new laws led to the notorious ‘credibility contest’ with the scales tipped in favour of the complainant. Laws and tests for evidence around sex crime claims have become and are becoming more complex and are inconsistently applied from case to case, primarily because of the subjective reasoning used by judges in reaching their conclusions. (And a desire to prove that the legal system protects women.)