Campbell Says Courts Must Be More Sensitive

Courts in Canada need to be more sensitive to the problems facing women, former Canadian Prime Minster Kim Campbell said during a symposium on violence at Agassiz House this weekend.

Campbell was the keynote speaker at the Saturday symposium, which was attended by 50 people.

The symposium, entitled "Violence in American Society," was jointly sponsored by Radcliffe College and the Institute of Politics.

"We want to create a greater awareness for people involved in public policy at the federal level and at the provincial level," Campbell said.

Campbell focused her speech on the problems of gun control and violence against women in Canada.

In addition to advocating greater judicial awareness of domestic violence, Campbell suggested tougher bail hearings to cut down on the number of husbands who, after being released on bail, return to beating their wives.

The former prime minister also advocated a gun control policy that would attempt to make sure "all guns are taken out of the wrong hands, and the wrong guns are taken from all hands." she said she hoped that all guns in Canada will eventually be registered with the government.

"It is not a right, but a privilege to own firearms," Campbell said. She went on to call the constitutional argument for the right of Americans to own guns "bogus."

Campbell said Canada is far ahead of the United States in measures to control firearms. As evidence, she cited a Canadian restriction on semiautomatic weapons and a 28-day waiting period to buy hand guns.

"Don't allow yourselves to be disillusioned by the problems," Campbell said. "Remember individual contributions can make a difference in making a society a safer and less violent one."

Stanton Professor of the First Amendment Frederick Schauer, former Cambridge Mayor Alice K. Wolf and Marvin Daniels, the mediation coordinator at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, also spoke at the symposium.