Book Review: No Legal Way Out: R v Ryan, Domestic Abuse, and the Defence of Duress

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

No Legal Way Out: R v Ryan, Domestic Abuse, and the Defence of Duress. By Nadia Verrelli & Lori Chambers. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021. vii, 199 p. Includes bibliographic references, table of cases, and index. ISBN 9780774838085 (hardcover) $75.00; ISBN 9780774838092 (softcover) $27.95; ISBN 9780774838115 (ePUB) $27.95; ISBN 9780774838108 (PDF) $27.95.

Reviewed by Bobbie A. Walker
Certified by the Law Society as a Specialist in Criminal Law
In CLLR 47:2

No Legal Way Out is part of UBC Press’s Landmark Cases in Canadian Law series. It is a comprehensive review of the state of the law on domestic abuse in Canada and includes extensive bibliographic and case law references. Examining the 2013 Supreme Court of Canada decision R v Ryan, the book delves into the multi-faceted definition of violence, including intimidation, oppression, harassment, isolation, control, threat of violence, gaslighting, non-consensual sexual activities, financial control, entrapment, and denigration. Along the way, it exposes a judicial system that addresses incidents while ignoring the processes of domestic violence.

In the initial proceedings of R v Ryan, Nicole Doucet (Ryan) was acquitted of hiring a hitman to end the life of her husband after years of violence. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the trial court. The Attorney General appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada with the issue on appeal being whether duress was available in law as a defence.

With its focus on the definition of duress, without the context of the pervasiveness of domestic violence, the authors argue that the justice system provided a disservice to victims and survivors of abuse. As the application of duress was clarified and narrowed in scope, self-defence and the defence of necessity were not considered. Gender-based analysis was also absent. This narrowing of defences available to an abused woman would ultimately empower the abuser.

R v Ryan painfully acknowledged our societal acceptance of intimate partner violence at every level of society. The repeated and documented abuse in Doucet’s home was ignored. The medical community and social services did not recognize or appreciate the violence. The police took the side of the charismatic abuser, failing to understand the dynamic and properly investigate. The courts, both criminal and family, were dismissive. The media coverage was unbalanced, polarizing the public against Doucet.

No Legal Way Out stresses the need for education on the definition of violence and abuse. The public, the media, the police, social services, health care practitioners, legal practitioners, and the judiciary need to be aware of the battering and coercive control by abusers and the effects this causes, mainly the blame placed on the victim for being in an abusive predicament, as well as the expectation that women need to manage and control a man’s violence.

This publication solidifies the need to educate women on how to protect themselves and recognize the numerous forms of abuse, as well as the need to educate men on how not to become abusers. Victims of domestic violence will continue to be denied equal protection under the law until thought processes and the laws themselves change. The current systemic bias against domestic violence is ultimately the acceptance of domestic violence.

I highly recommend this well-written, well-referenced, and accessible book as a must-read for the legal profession. No Legal Way Out should be part of the curriculum for law, women’s studies, sociology, and other academic programs that deal with domestic abuse.