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The criminal justice system in canada
The criminal justice system in canada
The criminal justice system in canada
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Access to justice is a broad concept, surrounding people's effective access to the systems, procedures, information, and locations used in the administration of justice. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that ensuring access to justice is the greatest challenge to the rule of law in Canada today. When we think of access to justice, we normally think of the average citizen who cannot afford to sue if they are wronged or defend if they are sued. However, access to justice has been defined simply as, “access to lawyers and courts and as complexly as an equal right to participate in every institution where law is debated, created, found, organized, administered, interpreted, and applied” (Farrow, 2014, p, 961). In this sense, increasing access …show more content…
to justice may mean ensuring physical accessibility to the courthouse, simplifying procedural rules, using plain language in a statute, explaining what the law means on the internet, provision of translation, dispute resolution other than through the courts, legal aid, and similar steps to removing barriers of various kinds. In other words, we have faith in an accessible family justice system must be affordable and easy to navigate but we also believe that ensuring access to justice in family law requires consideration to other factors which create barriers to access to justice namely the impact of an individual’s culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, geographic residence, gender, and other types of difficulties which arise from family breakdown (Farrow, 2014, p. 961). It’s simple, if individuals cannot access the legal process, the courts, then they may as well not exist. Amyotte 2 It is not controversial to say that there is a major access to justice problem in this country. If the voices of our judges are any guide, the justice system is clearly facing major challenges. It is said that almost half of the population of Canada will experience some kind of law-related problem over a given three-year period. As the Canadian Bar Association recently stated, this fact suggests that “over the course of a lifetime almost everyone will confront a justiciable problem.” (Farrow, 2014, p, 963). It is for this reason that we should all care about and understand, at least to some extent, what justice is and how to access it, as we do in the case of health care. Another issue that needs to be considered is that it is documented that legal problems tend to multiply; another type of legal problem often compounds one sort of problem. For example, loss employment can lead to an increased use of social assistance (Farrow, 2014, p, 963). These legal problems also tend to lead to other social or health related problems and if left unresolved, the potential cost whether is be economic, health, and/or social to the individual, as well as to the state, is significant. Therefore, when combining all of these legal problems and legal needs is the harsh reality that, for most Canadians, legal assistance is too costly and therefore out of reach, with many people putting the blame on lawyers and suggesting that lawyers should cover the cost of expenses that are incurred (Farrow, 2014, p. 964). One of the main reasons that access to justice is so important is because the resources of the court are not infinite. There are only so many courtrooms, so many court staff, and so many judges. When the resources of the courts are excessively taxed by individual cases, there is an unavoidable delay and resulting injustice for other litigants. So apart from the additional costs to the complainants when their own cases are not proceeded with efficiently, there is an impact on Amyotte 3 the judicial system as a whole (Rothstein, 2014, p. 3). There is also an impact on the government that funds the courts and may have to ration other court services to offset the costs inherent in providing facilities and personnel as a result of inefficiently run cases. So, judges have a responsibility in the public interest, to ensure, as far as it is consistent with fairness and justice, that litigation is conducted as speedily and as efficiently as possible. Even in the intellectual property field, where cases can be complex and technical, and where the amounts involved may be large, and where we have already had reform, we must look seriously at further reform (Rothstein, 2014, p. 4). The courts are always concerned with fairness and due process. That is why the common view was that the lawsuit belonged to the lawyers. They chose what evidence to call, how many witnesses, the length of their direct and cross-examinations, and the extent of their pre-trial depositions. If a judge restricted evidence or pre-trial procedures, his decision was subject to appeal. Judges thought it would be the least bad alternative to let in the evidence and allow for all the pre-trial motions and depositions that counsel wished to bring or engage in, rather than having a spoiled trial and the cost and inefficiency in having it to be done all over again (Farrow, 2014, p. 964). Canadians value a healthy and just society, and our health and justice systems are a point of pride. Despite this pride, discriminatory outcomes exist for the most susceptible groups in society in both realms. Access to the justice system is severely limited for many who require it and by having access to it can help resolve problems with housing, income security and access to healthcare, and other recognised social determinants of health. Barry Zuckerman, the founder of the first medical-legal partnership has said, "legal advocacy is the best medicine for the social Amyotte 4 determinants of health” (Nobleman, 2014). When individuals have access to the civil justice system to deal with the causes of their ill health, it can serve as a type of anticipatory health care and in order to do this, we need to expand our view of the social determinants of health to include access to justice and move beyond the narrow conceptions of health as biological and behavioural and start focusing on the legal aspects. While we believe that the abovementioned arguments are convincing and do support a special duty on the part of lawyers to ensure access to justice, we do note that arguments supporting the professional obligation are not without their critics. Some question the argument from tradition, suggesting instead that history is equivocal at best with respect to a lawyer’s duty to serve the public interest (McDowell & Sheikh, 2009). Others note that access to justice is a societal responsibility and that it would be unjust to find a duty on the part of lawyers to fund the collective obligation of society as a whole. Still others note the special circumstances affecting younger promoters who face the “tyranny of billable hours regimes” as well as the inadequate resources of sole practitioners, suggesting that a broad professional obligation to engage in pro bono public may be unrealistic and would have the potential to disproportionately affect some legal professionals more than others (McDowell & Sheikh, 2009). According to McDowell and Sheikh there are four things that could be done in the future to ensure that access to justice is something that becomes less of a problem and more of a concept that people praise; (1) When it comes to the legal aspect, counsel should provide pro bono services for those unable to pay and who would otherwise be deprived of adequate legal advice or representation; (2) Counsel should consider substitute measures to decrease the costs of litigation for those with limited means, including a reduction in fees, alternative dispute Amyotte 5 resolution, and innovative billing structures; (3) Counsel should support or contribute to organizations, initiatives and other efforts on the part of the profession intended to improve access to justice and make legal services available to persons of limited means; (4) Counsel should be aware of their special professional obligations when dealing with self-represented parties (McDowell & Sheikh, 2009).
By doing at least one of these four things, it would reduce the cost of legal proceedings and would make it easier for people with lower incomes to access justice.
Access to justice and the right to a fair hearing are fundamental to the rule of law and any just society which values dignity and fairness. access to justice is for the most part understood as access to the kind of life and the kinds of communities in which people would like to live. It is about accessing equality, understanding, education, food, housing, security, happiness, et cetera. It is about the good life; that is ultimately the point. The more researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners understand this, the more their efforts to reform access to justice will yield fruit. Good laws, rules, judges, educators, lawyers, and courtrooms are all important. As the Honourable David Johnston commented in the context of the legal profession, “We enjoy a monopoly to practise law. In return, we are duty bound to serve our clients competently, to improve justice and to continuously create the good. That’s the deal” (Farrow, 2014, p, 983). The same can largely be said for all who work in the justice
system.
The areas in which these reforms should occur are twofold. One argument that Judge Ross raises repeatedly is that measures should be taken to insure the sustainability of Family Court employees through more manageable caseloads. The necessity of this change is evident in countless examples of children suffering as a result of constantly changing, thin-spread, staff. In one particular instance, a six month child abuse case is adjourned because they “don’t have the medical records” in time (128). The second argument that can be implicitly made based off of Judge Ross’s expressed frustrations is that, if given the proper time for consideration, there should be more room for consideration of circumstance in Family Court. From a legal standpoint, there is substantial evidence for the validity of a common law approach to Family Court over the traditional civil law. Judge Ross establishes that ideally “In each case to protect children, to assure due process, to remain neutral until the facts are established, to apply common sense and sound judgment within the framework of the law in making decisions—the Family Court judge’s charge lies quite outside the arena of public policy, comment, and debate” (104). However, as seen in many of his cases, the combination of the overflowing workload and an inability to apply proper consideration to any given circumstance makes it impossible for the pre-existing
The Canadian justice system, although much evolved, is having difficulty eliminating bias from the legal system. Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, a 39 year old man, died on June 11 in a Peterborough hospital, while under immigration detention. He came to Canada in 1993 as a refugee and was suffering from mental, and physical health issues such as diabetes and bipolar disorder. There was an overwhelming amount of secrecy surrounding the death of this troubled Toronto man, and to this day no light has been shed on this tragedy. (Keung, 2015) An analysis of the official version of the law will reveal how race class and gender coincide with the bias within the legal system.
Blair, Annice. Law in Action: Understanding Canadian Law. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2003. Print.
According to the Legal Aid Society (2016), a fair hearing
Crime control and due process are two different ideal types of criminal justice. One could say they are extremes on a continuum. The role of crime control is to get the criminal off the street and to protect the innocent. The due process model of criminal justice is like an obstacle course, you have to keep going through legal obstacles to ensure in the end you convict the right person. In Canada the police lean toward crime control and the courts lean toward due process. This causes tension between the police and the courts. I will argue for both crime control and due process, putting more weight on due process If we did not have due process in Canada, people in positions of power, could manipulate the system for their own personal or political gain and railroad the innocent off to prison.
David Milgaard’s story is one of the most striking and well know representation of wrongful conviction as it happened right here in Saskatoon. Even further than that his case has been called “one of the most famous examples of wrongful conviction in Canada” (CBC News, 2011). In January of 1970, 17-year-old ...
people in these 21st century society wonder, “When is Justice to be done?” For district attorneys,
Rice, S (2011) ‘Reflections on reforming discrimination laws in Australia’, Human Rights law Centre, viewed 4 October 2011, .
Hulbert, M. A. (2011). Pursuing justice: An introduction to justice studies. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
Restorative justice can be defined as a theory related to justice that is concerned on repairing the harm that is caused or revealed by a criminal behavior (Barsh 2005: 359). Over the years, restorative justice has been seen as an effective way of dealing with both social as well as cultural issues of the aboriginal people. Because of these, restorative justice is used in many of the local communities in an effort to correct criminal behavior. This concept is seen as a conceptualization of justice which is in most cases congruent with the cultural and the community values of the aboriginal people. There is growing body of evidence which suggests that there are a number of challenges which accrue the effective implementation of restorative justice amongst the aboriginal people.
In the year 1970, the Canadian government founded the Law Reform Commission of Canada to ensure the progression of law making and to make recommendations for legal changes . The Law Reform Commission of Canada is constantly importing and suggesting proposals towards the criminal code of Canada. During the year of 1985, t...
Youth and juvenile crime is a common and serious issue in current society, and people, especially parents and educators, are pretty worried about the trend of this problem. According to Bala and Roberts, around 17% of criminals were youths, compared to 8% of Canadian population ranging between 12 to 18 years of age between 2003 and 2004 (2006, p37). As a big federal country, Canada has taken a series of actions since 1908. So far, there are three justice acts in the history of Canadian juvenile justice system, the 1908 Juvenile Delinquents Act, the 1982 Young Offenders Act, and the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act. In Canada, the judicial system and the principle of these laws have been debated for a long time. This paper will discuss how these three laws were defined and why one was replaced by another.
While pursuing my criminal justice degree at the University of Phoenix, justice is a topic that has arisen constantly and defined differently be numerous individuals. After many discussions involving this topic in the courses, I was able to define justice and what it means to me. Although I do not currently work in the field, the classmates who have experience in the field brought great personal experiences to the discussions. University of Phoenix has also contributed to my definition of justice through the facilitators. The facilitators currently work in the field they are teachi...
The present system of justice in this country is too slow and far too lenient. Too often the punishment given to criminal offenders does not fit the crime committed. It is time to stop dragging out justice and sentencing and dragging our feet in dispensing quick and just due. All punishment should be administered in public. It is time to revert back to the "court square hanging" style of justice. This justice would lessen crime because it would prove to criminals that harsh justice would be administered.
Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice, 5(2), 454-460.