“Not to put too fine a point on it,” but before, when it was cheap to prosecute crime the police and Crown could and did hide all of their evidence from you, even evidence that would prove your innocence, make you wait for 18 months for a trial on bail restrictions if you didn’t plead guilty and didn’t care if you were too poor to afford a lawyer. Yes, you can do “justice” on the cheap or you can do it right, with fairness, human dignity and respecting constitutional rights. It’s not the Supreme Court’s fault. Blame the decision to afford Canadian citizens basic fundamental legal rights.
Drinking and driving? Make a plan to get home safely. Seriously. Make a plan.
THE GOING RATE – BLOCK FEES
National Fee Ranges (average, minimum, maximum)
Summary criminal offence (one day trial) 3,264 2,361 5,674
Bail hearing 923 577 1,710
Criminal offence (one day trial) 3,693 2,957 6,773
Ontario Fee Ranges (average, minimum, maximum)
Summary criminal offence (one day trial) 3,356 2,442 5,769
Bail hearing 1,037 721 2,163
Criminal offence (one day trial) 3,747 3,146 7,458
(Source: www.canadianlawyermag.com)
THE GOING RATE – HOURLY FEES
“In 2013, hourly rates nationally are $193 for one-year calls; $256 for five-year calls; $310 for 10-year calls; $364 for 20-year calls; and $375 for those called more than 20 years ago.” “More than half (55 per cent) of respondents offered free initial consultations, though the second biggest proportion — 14 per cent — charged between $201 and $300.”
THE JUSTICE CRITIC POINTS OUT WHAT HARPER AND MacKAY ARE DOING WRONG ON JUSTICE ISSUES
1. Harper froze federal legal aid funding in this country a decade ago.
2. There also aren’t enough judges in Quebec or Alberta nor are there enough federal prosecutors in most provinces.
3. Public Works and Government Services Canada lets cases go to court with $1,000-an-hour lawyers rather than negotiating with the costs ending up on the Justice Department’s bill.
4. Harper has lost five major cases that ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
5. The Conservative government hasn’t been applying constitutional tests to legislation before it goes to Parliament.
6. Legislation related to child kidnapping would force judges to hand down a 4 year minimum mandatory jail sentence but at present judges are handing down 8 year sentences and more often than not, it’s 16 or 20 years if there is violence or a killing.
7. The Conservatives are promising to spend $20 million to help sex trade workers as part of their new prostitution law but that’s over five years across the 10 provinces and three territories and Harper could pass the money out to his favourite religious groups rather than women’s organizations or sex-trade worker associations.
etc.
The Hill: A peek at justice issues from the opposition side of the House.
JUSTICE ON TARGET AND LEGAL AID – IT LOOKS LIKE A CONSPIRACY BUT IT’S NOT
In a nutshell: “Justice on Target is an initiative put forth to address long wait times and effectively reduce criminal court delays. Launched in 2008, JOT claims to have eliminated more than 500,000 criminal court appearances since its inception. However, Singh says the program is putting pressure on clients, especially those with low income. Charges that are less serious don’t qualify for legal aid coverage and this coupled with JOT pushing for quick resolutions is making clients plead guilty because they can’t afford a trial.”
It may look like a conspiracy but it’s not. It’s all the same government trying to save money by pushing cases through court and doing its best to make sure you don’t get a lawyer, which we all know, slows things down.
INTERNET MURDER – IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?
Could plugging every aspect of our lives into the internet eventually be the death of us?
An “Internet Murder” Could Happen By The End of This Year | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.
DECEPTION AND MISDIRECTION FROM OTTAWA – Bill C-13
“Protecting Canadians from Online Crime” is a laudable goal but not when this Bill’s real purpose is to circumvent the Supreme Courts ruling preserving Canadians constitutional rights. Bill C-13 creates a new offence of non-consensual distribution of intimate images but in doing so includes provisions for the forfeiture of property, preservation demands of electronic information, new production orders, new warrants to extend investigative powers for data and to enable tracking of individuals and transactions, makes it easier for police to intercept private communications and makes a spouse a compellable witness, intruding further upon the sanctity and privacy of marriage relationships…and more. It’s like using and elephant to stomp a mouse.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU IMPLY
Man walks into a drugstore wearing a hoodie and says to the clerk, this is a robbery, give me the money, I have a gun. Clerk was scared and handed over the money. Man did not touch the clerk nor did he have a gun. The Supreme Court of Canada has made the semantic leap that the implied threat that did not injure or put anyone in imminent danger was itself an ACT of violence. The court ruled that “all threats of violence are themselves violent, even though the seriousness of the violence may be quite limited.”
WHAT A LEGAL AID CERTIFICATE MEANS TO A LAWYER
I will restrict my comments to a criminal defence certificate issued by Legal Aid Ontario, because that’s what I know.
Legal Aid is broken and is broken upon the backs of criminal defence lawyers.
A LA certificate provides complete payment to a lawyer for all necessary services to defend a criminal charge at the prescribed hourly rate for a limited number of hours. It cannot be “topped up” by the client or any other source. There is no specific provision for the cost of overhead (office rent, secretarial salaries, cost of advertising and office supplies, equipment, etc.). The rate of pay is so low (around 1/3 or so of the going rate for a privately retained lawyer) and the number of hours allowed so inadequate that lawyers cannot afford to stay in business exclusively on Legal Aid and we cannot afford to represent clients properly. Imagine you needed your car repaired, or the roof of your house replaced. To a lawyer, accepting a certificate is like getting paid $500 for a $1,000 repair job and having to pay our overhead on top. In reality, how does that work out – repair guy goes out of business or you get a shoddy repair? Both. Imagine if you were going into surgery and your doctor told you that it’s a 4 hours operation but he’s only getting paid for 2 hours, and has to pay for the operating room use, pay for the nurses time and bring his own surgical tools. Would you still go through with the surgery?
Even if you were eligible for a Legal Aid certificate, would you want to put your life and liberty in the hands of a lawyer under those circumstances?
LEGAL AID ONTARIO IS BROKEN