Do Canadians Have Access To Justice?
The question of whether or not Canadians have access to justice has been a subject of many discussions in the legal community lately. Did you know that throughout Canada, anywhere from one half to three fourths of Family Law litigants go unrepresented by legal counsel?
Supreme Court Justice Thomas Cromwell has been working tirelessly to spearhead a campaign against the unaffordability of professional legal services. Justice Cromwell is chair of the national Action Committee on Access to Civil and Family Justice. In this position, he oversees the organized Bar, legal regulators, judges, legal aids, court administrators and much of the legal community throughout Canada. The goal of the committee is to unite the nation’s legal community and put forth change to the unaffordability of legal services for lower to middle-income Canadians.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin initially brought the topic of access to justice to the forefront four years ago. Justice McLachlin recently made her annual address to the CBA and warned that the problem of Canadians facing a financial barrier to the legal system must be solved in order to “keep our legal system, and our democracy, strong and healthy.” The chief justice went on to say, “If people decide that they can’t get justice, they will have less respect for the law. They will tend not to support the rule of the law, and they won’t see the rule of law, which is so fundamental to our democratic society, as central and important.”
The CBA endorsed a remedial measure at their August 11th meeting to raise public awareness about legal expense insurance and to ask insurers to adapt their policies to cover family law expenses at more reasonable costs.
To learn more about this issue, click here to read the article, “Access to justice initiative builds” by Cristin Schmitz.
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Vogel LLP is a Calgary based law firm with expertise in Personal Injury, Family Law, and Estate Litigation. The lawyers at Vogel LLP are united by the common goal of delivering successful legal solutions to clients. Vogel LLP lawyers strive to solve their client’s problems in the most timely and effective way in accordance with the highest standards of practice and ethical conduct.