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Roger Lessard was sitting in his home office last month when an email appeared on his computer screen.

“Your complaint concerning Quebec’s justice department,” read the title of the letter attached. Sent from the Quebec ombudsman’s office, the email also included a 13-page report.

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Lessard, a 67-year-old retired school principal in Thetford Mines, printed out the report to read it closely. He was stunned by what it said.

He called a longtime friend, Pierre Bolduc. He had received the same message.

“Pierre,” Lessard told him, “this is incredible.”

“I know,” Bolduc, 61, answered. “It’s exactly what we wanted.”

The report was a response to a complaint made by the two men more than a year ago.

That complaint was the culmination of a seven-year battle against what they describe as an unjust and archaic system — how Quebec’s civil laws still set time limits for sexual assault victims to take their aggressors to court.