Access to Justice: Restore legal aid in BC
The following is a summary of our letter to the Attorney General of BC. To view the entire letter, which will be sent with the signatures below, please click on "letter" on the left.
The recent continuation of cuts to legal aid in BC will have a devastating impact on women, particularly those living in poverty, women of colour, Aboriginal women, and other marginalized women. These cuts are taking place at a time when Canada is already being criticized for its failure to meet its international obligation to ensure that women have equal access to the justice system.
A recent study released by the Legal Services Society of BC found that more than 80% of low-income British Columbians are dealing with legal issues that are serious and difficult to resolve, yet both the quality and quantity of legal services available to low income people continue to erode. The most recent erosion of legal services in BC includes:
- cuts to the tariffs for family, immigration and criminal law;
- stricter screening processes and eligibility requirements for clients;
- the closing of the family law clinic;
- reductions in staff lawyers; and
- reductions in services for people who cannot access legal representation through LSS, including cuts to the staffing of the LawLINE and family and other duty counsel.
An Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by LSS found that 97% of British Columbians agree that everyone should have access to the justice system and that 78% agree that government should give the same priority to funding legal aid as to other social services such as health care and education. Now is the time to restore services and to begin to develop a comprehensive strategy to build a legal aid system that ensures that women have equal access to the justice system and reflects the needs and values of all British Columbians.
For more information, please vist http://www.westcoastleaf.org/ or
The following is a summary of our letter to the Attorney General of BC. To view the entire letter, which will be sent with the signatures below, please click on "letter" on the left.
The recent continuation of cuts to legal aid in BC will have a devastating impact on women, particularly those living in poverty, women of colour, Aboriginal women, and other marginalized women. These cuts are taking place at a time when Canada is already being criticized for its failure to meet its international obligation to ensure that women have equal access to the justice system.
A recent study released by the Legal Services Society of BC found that more than 80% of low-income British Columbians are dealing with legal issues that are serious and difficult to resolve, yet both the quality and quantity of legal services available to low income people continue to erode. The most recent erosion of legal services in BC includes:
- cuts to the tariffs for family, immigration and criminal law;
- stricter screening processes and eligibility requirements for clients;
- the closing of the family law clinic;
- reductions in staff lawyers; and
- reductions in services for people who cannot access legal representation through LSS, including cuts to the staffing of the LawLINE and family and other duty counsel.
An Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by LSS found that 97% of British Columbians agree that everyone should have access to the justice system and that 78% agree that government should give the same priority to funding legal aid as to other social services such as health care and education. Now is the time to restore services and to begin to develop a comprehensive strategy to build a legal aid system that ensures that women have equal access to the justice system and reflects the needs and values of all British Columbians.
For more information, please vist http://www.westcoastleaf.org/ or
The Organizations and Individuals listed below support the following statement:
The recent continuation of cuts to legal aid in BC will have a devastating impact on women, particularly those living in poverty, women of colour, Aboriginal women, and other marginalized women.
These cuts are taking place at a time when Canada is already being criticized for its failure to meet its international obligation to ensure that women have equal access to the justice system.
A recent study released by the Legal Services Society of BC (LSS) found that more than 80% of low-income British Columbians are dealing with legal issues that are serious and difficult to resolve, yet both the quality and quantity of legal services available to low income people continue to erode. The most recent erosion of legal services in BC includes:
- cuts to the tariffs for family, immigration and criminal law;
- stricter screening processes and eligibility requirements for clients;
- the closing of the family law clinic;
- reductions in staff lawyers; and
- reductions in services for people who cannot access legal representation through LSS, including cuts to the staffing of the LawLINE and family and other duty counsel.
Reducing the legal aid tariffs to private bar lawyers is unacceptable. Even at current tariff rates, lawyers cannot effectively serve their clients. The low number of hours funded under the legal aid tariff in family matters, child protection cases, and immigration/refugee cases seriously undermines the capacity of lawyers to provide the quality of legal services low income British Columbians so desperately need.
One impact of the 2002 cuts was to make it challenging for women to find lawyers willing to take legal aid cases in the few instances that women were found eligible for legal aid coverage. These most recent cuts will make that much, much worse.
This latest round of cuts will mean that community groups and women's organizations will be expected to fill an even larger service gap without additional resources or training. Women who are unable to access advocacy services will continue to be forced to navigate the system on their own, with potentially devastating consequences for themselves and their families.
Services provided by staff lawyers, such as those provided through the family law clinic, need to be expanded not eliminated. LSS staff lawyers are able to take cases that private lawyers simply cannot take on with the kind of file management and care many of the clients accessing the clinic require. Most often these are cases that involve critical family issues, that may have been lingering in the system for a long time, and involve complicating factors, such as, insecure immigration status, litigation harassment by an ex partner, a history of domestic violence and/or mental illness.
Cuts to the LawLINE and family law duty counsel, as well as the decision not to proceed with the Justice Access Centre in Vancouver will make it next to impossible to access timely legal information and advice for those who can not afford legal representation, do not qualify for legal representation, or are not aware of community legal services. Significant reductions in extended service referrals for family law, combined with stricter standards for approving immigration referrals will only increase the number of self-represented litigants attempting to navigate the system without support.
The Legal Services Society's position that these cuts are necessary in light of the current fiscal environment ignores the reality that these short-term savings will lead to greater costs down the road. Direct costs to the provincial government will include an increasingly backlogged court system, an increase in health costs (see a recent LSS study on the connection between health and legal problems), and a cost to income assistance programs and other social services. Without legal representation, some women may abandon their fight for the spousal and child support that they are entitled to in law.
There will also be indirect costs to individuals, families and society, including, greater social services costs as women's health and ability to work and care for their children is impacted by legal problems that are left unresolved or unfairly resolved.
It is imperative that this latest round of cuts to legal services in British Columbia be reversed. However, this latest crisis is indicative of a broader failure on the part of both the provincial and the federal governments to ensure equal and adequate access to the justice system. This crisis reflects the continued inability of LSS to fulfill its stated mission: "to provide innovative and collaborative legal aid services that enable people with low incomes to effectively address their issues within the justice system".
In November 2008, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women stated in its Concluding Observations on Canada, "The Committee is concerned at reports that financial support for civil legal aid has diminished and that access to it has become increasingly restricted, in particular in British Columbia, consequently denying low-income women access to legal representation and legal services." This latest round of cuts to legal services in BC demonstrates a lack of commitment on the part of both the LSS and the federal and provincial governments to address the concerns raised by CEDAW.
An Ipsos Reid survey commissioned by LSS found that 97% of British Columbians agree that everyone should have access to the justice system and that 78% agree that government should give the same priority to funding legal aid as to other social services such as health care and education. Now is the time to restore services and to begin to develop a comprehensive strategy to build a legal aid system that ensures that women have equal access to the justice system and reflects the needs and values of all British Columbians.
access to justice in BC has all but dissappeared in BC under the Liberals
I believe in fairness. I oppose cuts to legal aid because of the high level of poverty in BC. Poor women are those who need Justice support the most. More than 25% of the children in BC live below the poverty level, and so do their parents, mainly mothers. This further cut will be a shocking legacy of the Liberal government.
i have an arrest warrent and trying to deal with the this the right way and finding out i need money to pay fror a lawyer who i thought was being paid by legal aid is asking me for money to represent me in court and being already on welfare and not being able to afford 2500 bucks is good enough for a signature from me.
Women and particularly their children will be further marginalized and victimized by their abusers who have the time and resources and access to lawyers to destroy women and their lives in court, even to the point of criminalizing the mothers who will not have access to a lawyer or real advice nor be able to defend themselves or their babies in a court of law.
Women need help with the legal system and access to money should not be a barrier to accessing legal aid.
Women and children need funding to secure good lawyers who can advocate for them and help them navigate the complexity of the canadian legal system.
Those who believe in equality for all have a duty to speak out against the funding cuts to legal aid in BC. These cuts impact those with the least power and ability to speak on their own behalf.
BECUASE ITS NOT FAIR
It is essential for low income women to have the right of legal aid, provided they are made aware of it.
It is unethical to allow one side in any legal case to have access to much greater resources than the other party(such as in criminal prosecutions). It is unethical to deprive people who lack highly specialized education about law and legal system of that knowledge when they are trying to use the legal system to access their legal rights including in family law cases or human rights cases. When we deprive people this access, we make the legal system and our system of law meaningless except as a tool of control by those with resources over those who have much less.
The law is not beeing interpreted by the nation, fanatic behaviour rules the land now, its not loosing or the amendments, but how people interpret it. Equality dignity rights and freedon, depend, in torture, for jobs and money to acknowledge and mend our lives, democracy is US based, local cultures like Canadian people, are more effective. psychologically, nazi's are still here in government. The bold statement is not accepted, since "that" leadership is replaced by the boss, and the workers ww, understand and surrender to "it", fear is employment, mandatory, and exploited and worst, religions are, as industry also sitting with sales abuse mind. The horror of not beeing a jewish or native (not to promote or support...) to be identified, to be helped as people, my S.I.N. sinks me into a bucket, welfare is the solution, yet health, social, and industry punish with discreet and nightmare might. Rental, jobs, love, sex, friendships, transport and even supermarkets, are now kingdoms, with security paid by rot minded, desperate, ill investors, and the environment now in a toxic horizon, connected to space and marine pollution. Geen space is fading, and the remainder is pay or besides highways. Overpopulation is not understood.
So these changes "will only increase the number of self-represented litigants attempting to navigate the system without support". How many of us here believe that they could go through the legal system solo? I have no statistics here, but people with low incomes are not automatically people who 'don't work hard' or are 'lazy'. Yes, there are those who are largely to blame for their own status as a low income member of society. But for many, many others, I believe that the environment they were raised in and how they were treated by those who raised them play a huge role in their being on the fringes of society. Not through any inherent laziness/weakness that is stronger than in other 'normal' people. This is recognised by the provision of services (needle exchange, soup kitchens, legal aid, mentor programs etc) by various groups in BC for marginalised people; and it seems a logical extension to maintain funding for their legal aid, should they need it. It just doesn't make sense to force the people who need their time the most to spend it putting together their own legal cases etc. For who will take care of their children? Or put in a full shift at work? Anyone can become an unfair victim in a legal case even with the help of legal representation, so to handicap low income defendents (etc) further by limiting the aid they can access is a sad thing.
I have a sister in BC undergoing a difficult divorce and access. Very low income.
There is no justice for women who fled abuse and due to Gordon Campbell who cut all ability for women to be able to protect our children from abuse now.... denied by legal aid and appealed it only to realize when I saw in the court room all women were without support legally and all the men had a lawyer.... something is very wrong here
The rule of law requires access to justice; without it, our whole democratic system is undermined and loses legitimacy. Cutting legal aid silences citizens and erodes the very fabric of Canadian society.
as an ardent supporter of equality for women in all spheres of life, especially in being treated equally by the government/administrative machinery
Because women always get the east amount of money, the most problems, and work the hardest - this has to change for the sake of women, their childre, families and society in general.
Why are you concerned about the level of access to legal aid in BC? People living in poverty, many of whom have disabilities, most often cannot get the legal representation they need to have any semblance of equality before the law. The notions of peace, order and good government are mocked by the draconian cuts to legal aid.
The freedom of information act is an act to protect government from releasing information in a timely manner. 60 days and longer for a bylaw.. yeh right ... and to quash the bylaw lasts one month. I am going to voted homeless over a water system! Who do you know that can afford $143.00 per month for 30 years!
ability to prove ones innocence should not depend on their level of finances
With more job cuts, business closures, the less funds people have. The need has increased so much there must be a better way to help the average person with their legal needs!!!
Right now I am going through a divorce and have been unable to get legal aid. I have 3 children and not enough money. My soon to be ex has not paid child support for the first nine months that he was gone. he only just started paying and is only paying for 2 of the children. I hired a lawyer a couple months ago but had to let him go when, because he was afraid he wasn't going to get paid, he stopped working for me. Legal aid for women is a most important situation. My husband has a lawyer, his parents are the to help him in anyway they can. I am here with no family to help me. I should have the laws on my side but because he has the money I may lose half the proceeds from the sale of the matrimonial home. I am trying to do everything right and I am continually be pushed to the limit of survival. I have applied for rental assistance. I am gong back to school in an effort to better myself and my situation for myself and my kids. Legal aid is most important.
If high profile people such as Willie Pickton and Winston Blackmore get Legal Aid, and "women, particularly those living in poverty, women of colour, Aboriginal women, and other marginalized women" cannot, the system is wrong.
It is scandalous that convicted criminals receive legal aid, but abandoned mothers cannot.
The true measure of any society is the treatment of the most vulnerable members. Access to justice is a right, not a privilege, and must not be determined by level of income nor social status. Welfare is Welfare, no matter whether the source be Corporate or Government. Inequity breeds violence, and violence begets more violence. All citizens have the right to respect, dignity, justice and compassion in human relations. "In as much as ye have done it unto those who are the least of thy brethren, so have ye done it unto me." There but for the Grace of God (Allah, Budda, The Creator, or however the divine is expressed in ones' life) go you and I. The "least of thy brethren" does not equate to those who one considers to be lesser than oneself, but those who are less fortunate. Let's get our priorities straight.
