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The criminal justice system in canada
The criminal justice system in canada
The criminal justice system in canada
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Access to justice is a broad concept, surrounding people's effective access to the systems, procedures, information, and locations used in the administration of justice. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that ensuring access to justice is the greatest challenge to the rule of law in Canada today. When we think of access to justice, we normally think of the average citizen who cannot afford to sue if they are wronged or defend if they are sued. However, access to justice has been defined simply as, “access to lawyers and courts and as complexly as an equal right to participate in every institution where law is debated, created, found, organized, administered, interpreted, and applied” (Farrow, 2014, p, 961). In this sense, increasing access …show more content…
By doing at least one of these four things, it would reduce the cost of legal proceedings and would make it easier for people with lower incomes to access justice.
Access to justice and the right to a fair hearing are fundamental to the rule of law and any just society which values dignity and fairness. access to justice is for the most part understood as access to the kind of life and the kinds of communities in which people would like to live. It is about accessing equality, understanding, education, food, housing, security, happiness, et cetera. It is about the good life; that is ultimately the point. The more researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners understand this, the more their efforts to reform access to justice will yield fruit. Good laws, rules, judges, educators, lawyers, and courtrooms are all important. As the Honourable David Johnston commented in the context of the legal profession, “We enjoy a monopoly to practise law. In return, we are duty bound to serve our clients competently, to improve justice and to continuously create the good. That’s the deal” (Farrow, 2014, p, 983). The same can largely be said for all who work in the justice
Crime control and due process are two different ideal types of criminal justice. One could say they are extremes on a continuum. The role of crime control is to get the criminal off the street and to protect the innocent. The due process model of criminal justice is like an obstacle course, you have to keep going through legal obstacles to ensure in the end you convict the right person. In Canada the police lean toward crime control and the courts lean toward due process. This causes tension between the police and the courts. I will argue for both crime control and due process, putting more weight on due process If we did not have due process in Canada, people in positions of power, could manipulate the system for their own personal or political gain and railroad the innocent off to prison.
The areas in which these reforms should occur are twofold. One argument that Judge Ross raises repeatedly is that measures should be taken to insure the sustainability of Family Court employees through more manageable caseloads. The necessity of this change is evident in countless examples of children suffering as a result of constantly changing, thin-spread, staff. In one particular instance, a six month child abuse case is adjourned because they “don’t have the medical records” in time (128). The second argument that can be implicitly made based off of Judge Ross’s expressed frustrations is that, if given the proper time for consideration, there should be more room for consideration of circumstance in Family Court. From a legal standpoint, there is substantial evidence for the validity of a common law approach to Family Court over the traditional civil law. Judge Ross establishes that ideally “In each case to protect children, to assure due process, to remain neutral until the facts are established, to apply common sense and sound judgment within the framework of the law in making decisions—the Family Court judge’s charge lies quite outside the arena of public policy, comment, and debate” (104). However, as seen in many of his cases, the combination of the overflowing workload and an inability to apply proper consideration to any given circumstance makes it impossible for the pre-existing
The Canadian justice system, although much evolved, is having difficulty eliminating bias from the legal system. Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, a 39 year old man, died on June 11 in a Peterborough hospital, while under immigration detention. He came to Canada in 1993 as a refugee and was suffering from mental, and physical health issues such as diabetes and bipolar disorder. There was an overwhelming amount of secrecy surrounding the death of this troubled Toronto man, and to this day no light has been shed on this tragedy. (Keung, 2015) An analysis of the official version of the law will reveal how race class and gender coincide with the bias within the legal system.
Blair, Annice. Law in Action: Understanding Canadian Law. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2003. Print.
According to the Legal Aid Society (2016), a fair hearing
David Milgaard’s story is one of the most striking and well know representation of wrongful conviction as it happened right here in Saskatoon. Even further than that his case has been called “one of the most famous examples of wrongful conviction in Canada” (CBC News, 2011). In January of 1970, 17-year-old ...
Rice, S (2011) ‘Reflections on reforming discrimination laws in Australia’, Human Rights law Centre, viewed 4 October 2011, .
Hulbert, M. A. (2011). Pursuing justice: An introduction to justice studies. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
Restorative justice can be defined as a theory related to justice that is concerned on repairing the harm that is caused or revealed by a criminal behavior (Barsh 2005: 359). Over the years, restorative justice has been seen as an effective way of dealing with both social as well as cultural issues of the aboriginal people. Because of these, restorative justice is used in many of the local communities in an effort to correct criminal behavior. This concept is seen as a conceptualization of justice which is in most cases congruent with the cultural and the community values of the aboriginal people. There is growing body of evidence which suggests that there are a number of challenges which accrue the effective implementation of restorative justice amongst the aboriginal people.
people in these 21st century society wonder, “When is Justice to be done?” For district attorneys,
Youth and juvenile crime is a common and serious issue in current society, and people, especially parents and educators, are pretty worried about the trend of this problem. According to Bala and Roberts, around 17% of criminals were youths, compared to 8% of Canadian population ranging between 12 to 18 years of age between 2003 and 2004 (2006, p37). As a big federal country, Canada has taken a series of actions since 1908. So far, there are three justice acts in the history of Canadian juvenile justice system, the 1908 Juvenile Delinquents Act, the 1982 Young Offenders Act, and the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act. In Canada, the judicial system and the principle of these laws have been debated for a long time. This paper will discuss how these three laws were defined and why one was replaced by another.
In the year 1970, the Canadian government founded the Law Reform Commission of Canada to ensure the progression of law making and to make recommendations for legal changes . The Law Reform Commission of Canada is constantly importing and suggesting proposals towards the criminal code of Canada. During the year of 1985, t...
While pursuing my criminal justice degree at the University of Phoenix, justice is a topic that has arisen constantly and defined differently be numerous individuals. After many discussions involving this topic in the courses, I was able to define justice and what it means to me. Although I do not currently work in the field, the classmates who have experience in the field brought great personal experiences to the discussions. University of Phoenix has also contributed to my definition of justice through the facilitators. The facilitators currently work in the field they are teachi...
The present system of justice in this country is too slow and far too lenient. Too often the punishment given to criminal offenders does not fit the crime committed. It is time to stop dragging out justice and sentencing and dragging our feet in dispensing quick and just due. All punishment should be administered in public. It is time to revert back to the "court square hanging" style of justice. This justice would lessen crime because it would prove to criminals that harsh justice would be administered.
Contemporary Readings in Law & Social Justice, 5(2), 454-460.