It’s a disturbing time to be living in Canada. In BC we see that our provincial Government is attempting to undermine the justice system. For political and economic reasons they want to eliminate justice. It’s an upsetting trend.
No, the actual purpose from what we can see is to stack the deck in favour of the Government because they know that actual lawyers pose the biggest risk to the Government.
We watched in recent years as legal aid has been reduced to such an extent that legal aid lawyers no longer have the resources to put up much resistance to the Government on behalf of their clients. The next step that the BC Government took was to follow the model of civil forfeiture in the United States and create programs where the Government could just take people’s stuff on an allegation that the person or their stuff may be connected to a crime.
Then we watched as the BC Government took drinking driving cases from court to their own internal tribunal. As they did so, they made it so the police could collect poor evidence (using ASDs for punishment) and they reduced the burden of proof to a balance of probabilities. Now, to take it a creepy step further, they’re going to reverse the onus of proof, so the starting point is guilty.
Of course, drunk drivers are low hanging fruit. Most people think that drunk drivers should have no legal rights whatsoever. Which probably made it easier for the BC Government to make their argument when the IRP scheme faced judicial review.
Now we’re onto the next thing, which is taking away all of the same legal rights for traffic tickets. As you’ve likely seen on the news, the BC Government will soon have all the legislation they need in place to take traffic ticket disputes from court and put them in the same type of tribunal with the same rules as we see with IRPs.
What about the Charter of Rights?
Forget it. This is part of a methodical erosion of legal rights.
The BC Government’s tribunal legislation says that these tribunals can’t give Charter remedies, so if the police violate your Charter Rights, that’s too damn bad. For all intents and purposes, your Charter Rights have been legislated out of existence.
At least with respect to matters over which these tribunals have been given jurisdiction. Of course, you can expect that soon there will be more of these tribunals.
Is this an attack on lawyers?
Yes it is. You see, because of lawyers people succeed in cases before the courts where Charter rights are violated. When people win they don’t pay fines and fees. And the Government looks at the process of prosecution as an enormous cost.
But really this is an attack on the justice system. You see, the BC Government wants to change the rules so that they win more. Not to make the system more fair, but so they win more and can therefore collect more by way of fees and fines.
The Government wants to win when you’re facing a drunk driving offence or traffic ticket. The problem is with lawyers the Government doesn’t win very often. As with drunk driving cases, two things stand in the way of the Government winning more often in traffic court: 1. Rules (Mainly the Charter of Rights) 2. Lawyers who know the defences and the rules.
Eliminate court, eliminate the Charter of Rights, now eliminate lawyers
Legal Aid cuts haven’t eliminated lawyers, but it’s weakened them. If the Government could just eliminate lawyers, their plan would finally start coming together.
You see, one thing they didn’t expect with the IRP scheme was the extent of the legal fight. They thought that lawyers wouldn’t put up much resistance. One of their complaints about problems with the IRP scheme was described as “Complex legal issues (defense lawyers) = greater reliance on legal services.”
How can the Government force through an anti-justice agenda? Eliminate defence lawyers. How can they eliminate defence lawyers? Replace them with paralegals.
A shot across the bow to eliminate justice
Last week we heard it announced that the Government along with the Law Society was going to create a program to replace lawyers with paralegals. This was all presented with similar terms and phrases that have been used to sell the voters on civil forfeiture, the IRP scheme and the upcoming traffic ticket tribunal scheme. We’re told that it will facilitate greater access to justice.
Political spin
The purpose here seems to have little to do with access to justice. The examples that have been provided so far speak of work that we do in our office for very reasonable fees. People have no problem accessing us.
No, the actual purpose from what we can see is to stack the deck in favour of the Government because they know that actual lawyers pose the biggest risk to the Government. People are more likely to be successful if they have a lawyer. It is as simple as that. If they can create a law that fills offices with paralegals, then the Government will win more often.
Class divide
Rich people will not hire paralegals. They will hire lawyers and have better outcomes in their cases because the good lawyers figure out what to do. Years of education, high levels of intelligence necessary to get into law school, legal training, articling and working with other smart lawyers is what makes lawyers good at what they do.
Poor people will hire paralegals. And the poor will lose out once again in our society.
Non-existent need
The interesting thing about the paralegal scheme is that the Law Society and the Government say it’s necessary for access to justice. They say this citing certain examples, as though there were no lawyers out there who deal with administrative tribunals, and defend traffic tickets, or represent litigants in landlord/tenant hearings.
These are all things we do in our office! Moreover, the demand is no different than it was 10 years ago. There is no societal change or change in the justice system that makes this necessary now. So you need to question the motives behind this.
From our perspective there is no access to justice issue here. This BC Government is in a full on attack on the justice system.
They’re happy to have lawyers deal with land transactions selling public land to BC Liberal Party donors, and they’re more than happy to have lawyers to draw up contracts for big corporations. What they don’t want is lawyers to succeed in defending people who are alleged to have committed wrongs, unless the people are wealthy (at which point they can hire lawyers).
What needs to be done to stop the BC Government from eliminating justice?
We may be too far gone. Still, we’re not going to allow the BC Government to turn our province into tyranny piece by piece without a fight.
We don’t think that we’re the last defenders of justice, but alone we’re too small to pose any significant barrier to the BC Government. So we need help. We need to hire more people. We need to direct more energy into advocating for our justice system. We need to organize with other like-minded people and other lawyers, many of whom appear to feel as we do.
We’re gearing up right now. We may need your help and we may need some financial support as we move forward.
What they’re doing is wrong. We’re hoping to stop a bad trend. As the BC Government takes steps to eliminate justice, we intend to fight for our justice system.