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LEGAL AID UNDERFUNDING – is chronic and ubiquitous. Legal aid less than minimum wage, prominent lawyer complains | Vancouver Sun

Posted bywpengine 7 April 2018

One of the country’s top criminal lawyers, Marilyn Sandford, sat in her downtown Vancouver office aerie, lamenting the dire state of the courts and threadbare legal aid.

Source: Ian Mulgrew: Legal aid less than minimum wage, prominent lawyer complains | Vancouver Sun

Posted bywpengine7 April 2018Posted inUncategorized

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LEGAL AID UNDERFUNDING – is reaching a crisis point in England. “There is no payment at all for disclosure or the vast quantities of evidence likely to be served on us in cases going forward.” Barristers in England and Wales threaten walkout over legal aid payment changes

Recent Posts

  • Credit also has to be given to JAMES LOCKYER for his tireless advocacy over many years to bring this to fruition.
  • Lawyers in England are refusing to represent some people because their legal aid system is insufficient to maintain a viable practice. The legal aid system in Ontario is similarly perpetually on the brink.
  • Since 1982 accused persons have had the right to a trial within a reasonable time. We’ve had the Askov, Morin and now the Jordan cases of the Supreme Court of Canada trying to ensure that right, with only limited success. So now the courts are stacking cases on top of other cases on their daily trial lists that have no possibility of being reached for trial on that date.
  • JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED – Every person charged with a criminal offence has the constitutional right to have their trial held within a reasonable time. Our Supreme Court has twice attempted to define what is reasonable through the cases of Askov and Jordan. The result has been decades of hundreds of cases being “stayed” from proceeding due to delay and further delays caused by the complex application procedures required to assert that right. Nothing has changed. Simply demanding that the trial process proceed expeditiously doesn’t work.
  • WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR BAIL SYSTEM? – The federal government enacts the criminal code. The province applies it. The province builds and owns the courts. The province hires the Judges, the Justices of the Peace, the Crown Attorneys and court staff.
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