The ABA president raised
concerns about access to justice for veterans — many of whom face homelessness due to legal concerns — as well as concerns about planned cuts to federal legal services funding.
However, we must be careful not to
think about access to justice as simply a question of how to provide more litigants with legal representation in the courts.
I guess that part of me is like I really don't think that you have to think
about access to justice as sort of nonprofit charity work.
Want to gain public interest law leadership experience while spreading the
word about access to justice and protecting student debt relief programs on your law school campus?
If ideas and discussion
about access to justice in Canada interest you, consider setting aside your next fifteen - minute break (or 13:35 of it) to hear a good presentation.
Recently, a
discussion about access to justice solutions cropped up among lawyers on the platform and our executive producer, Laurence Colletti, decided it was worth recreating the conversation in podcast form.
Exactly 12 months on from «Fire in the Hole», there feels like a lot of change yet to happen in raising legal, public and political consciousness
about the access to justice crisis in Canada — but there are signs that we are heading in the right direction.
Shauna Mireau asks, «Does it say
anything about access to justice in Canada that civil claim monetary limits for our small claims courts are generally quite substantial sums?».
«In some of these cases, they had literally left off a comma,» she says, raising a concern
about access to justice for those without counsel.
YLAL co-chairs Oliver Carter and Katherine Barnes said: «YLAL welcomes The Right to Justice and believes this report by the Bach Commission represents a vital contribution to the public
debate about access to justice and legal aid.
The BCCA found that the issue before it was not
about access to justice at all, but about ensuring a proper record for courts to review administrative decisions.
We should be looking at how to sell a
story about access to justice, judicial independence, or the Rule of Law in a way that does not just reaffirm lawyers» self image, but actually alters awareness and behaviour on a grander scale.
We have frequently
blogged about access to justice issues, including the government's attempts to make Ontario's criminal law system «faster and fairer», and the right to timely trial.
Discussions
about access to justice typically focus attention on access through the traditional routes of courts, lawyers, law schools and pro bono or legal aid service providers.
Currently, The Action Group on Access to Justice (TAG) with support from the Southern Ontario Library Service is surveying public librarians in southern
Ontario about the access to justice needs of their patrons.