Monday, Sep 28, 2009
Toronto Star
Penny-ante legal aid system creates two tiers of justice
SGM's Frank Addario published an opinion piece in the Toronto Star today, in which he describes how the justice system is in a state of dangerous imbalance. Here is part of what Frank had to say:
For the last 20 years, law-and-order thinking has animated provincial and federal policies on justice issues. Tough on crime has translated into tough on criminals and the bleeding heart lawyers who defend them. Bucket loads of money were poured into investigating and prosecuting crimes, while legal aid programs for impoverished defendants were starved.
In every region of the country, cases entering the system became bigger and more complex. Prosecutors routinely hired experts at double the money legal aid pays for defence experts. Little thought was given to the practical problem of funding only one side of a binary justice system.
In this, Ontario shows where the rest of the country is headed. Since 1987, Ontario prosecutors have won salary increases in excess of 100 per cent. But, against an overall inflation rate of 75 per cent, the Ontario legal aid tariff increased by only 15 per cent.
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The image of pinstriped lawyers complaining about their pay does not intuitively evoke sympathy. But the reality is much different. The lawyers who accept legal aid are practising poverty law, providing service to the poorest people in the province.
They do not get the mind-boggling retainers that business lawyers demand. Instead, they agree to work for less than a quarter or more of what their top colleagues get in other branches of law. Lawyers doing this important work perform a service that makes the justice system fair.
Although the criminal legal aid program fills a vital gap for people struggling with poverty or unemployment, its recipients are not influential or popular. Their lawyers, caricatured as moral relativists, are regarded with equal disdain. Glib opinion-leaders like to lump defendants, their crime and the lawyers who defend them into a single "untouchable" category. For the last two decades Canadian legal aid programs have been strangled into ineffectiveness.
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Elected politicians have to declare themselves on access to justice for the poor. Governments that genuinely support equality must provide stable, long-term funding for legal aid programs. No waffling, half-measures or hedging will do.
Legal aid is modern social justice at its best. It is a triumph of equality when good lawyers accept such cases. It means that no matter how poor a person or how disorganized their life, a talented lawyer will speak for them.
In the legal system, at least, poverty takes a back seat. This beautiful ideal shows the rest of the world how we define justice. It's time to restore its sheen.
