Cliniques juridiques communautaires et l’accès à la justice en français

À première vue, le projet de loi 161, qui vise à établir un nouveau cadre pour la prestation des services d’aide juridique de l’Ontario, propose « un changement favorable » pour les francophones de la province. Mais selon Anne Levesque de l’Université d’Ottawa, un examen plus attentif révèle de possibles effets préjudiciables sur les cliniques, qui nuiraient entre autres aux justiciables francophones. Elle déplore notamment un nouveau critère d’éligibilité pour les membres des CA des cliniques qui pourrait rendre le recrutement de membres francophones plus difficile. Elle s’inquiète aussi de retranchement des domaines de pratique des cliniques qui ignore l’importance du droit à l’éducation pour les communautés de langues officielles en situation minoritaire. Il reviendra, selon l’auteure, au nouveau commissaire aux services en français de sonner l’alarme quant à ces impacts négatifs.

L’ombudsman de l’Ontario et la Loi sur les services en français

François Larocque de l’Université d’Ottawa examine l’état des mécanismes d’application des droits linguistiques en Ontario, dans la foulée des changements apportés par le gouvernement provincial à la Loi sur les services en français en 2018. Celle-ci avait semé la controverse avec l’abolition du Commissariat aux services en français et le poste de commissaire aux services en français en transférant ses compétences au bureau de l’ombudsman. L’auteur compare les pouvoirs de l’ombudsman et de son adjoint à ceux des autres commissaires aux langues du Canada. Il ne fait aucun doute, selon Larocque, que le nouveau poste de l’ombudsman adjoint de l’Ontario (qu’on appelle « commissaire aux services en français ») plus faible que son prédécesseur, et des autres commissaires aux langues canadiens. Cela dit, l’auteur conclut que la loi relève toujours d’un fonctionnaire indépendant de l’Assemblée législative—l’ombudsman—dont la compétence et l’influence pourraient servir à consolider son nouveau mandat linguistique.

The failure of forensic science at the Stanley trial

"The legal record does not establish exactly what happened in the moments before a bullet from Gerald Stanley's gun killed Colten Boushie," writes Emma Cunliffe of the Allard School of Law. "I am haunted by the grammar of my first sentence. At Stanley's trial, the relentless cause-and-effect of trigger pull, hammer strike, primer explosion, propellant ignition, bullet propulsion became entangled within, and fragmented by, colonial law's relentless logic of proof and doubt." Cunliffe details the bungled forensic investigation into Boushie's death, "conducted against a backdrop of systemic racism," from the crime scene left unprotected by heavy rain to the failure by the RCMP to secure blood splatter evidence. The author blames an excess of discretion that investigators enjoy and the "RCMP's resistance to adopting and publishing robust standards for crime scene investigation and forensic procedure." Until Canada's law enforcement and legal system adopt more rigorous evidence protocols governing death investigation procedures, "Indigenous deaths in Canada are likely to continue to be under-investigated and under-prosecuted."

Juries, Miscarriages of Justice and the Bill C-75 Reforms

Kent Roach of the University of Toronto argues that reforms that followed in the wake of the Stanley trial to make juries more representative, including the abolition of peremptory challenges, were justified:

"Bill C-75 recognized the need for jury reform by abolishing peremptory challenges. While this was controversial, and was unsuccessfully challenged under the Charter, it was also the most effective and efficient way to ensure that neither the Crown nor the accused can use peremptory challenges to exclude Indigenous peoples and other racialized groups simply because of the way they look. Canadian jurisprudence has utterly failed to prevent the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges, so Parliament had to step in."

But the reforms were also superficial, he writes:

"It is unfortunate that Bill C-75 was not more aggressive in terms of imposing more robust standards, rooted in substantive equality, to allow for a jury's composition to be challenged when Indigenous peoples and other racialized groups overrepresented in the justice system are underrepresented on the jury."

Specifically, Roach would have the provinces to use more inclusive jury lists and allow the use of local juries and volunteer jurors from Indigenous communities. He also writes that we should consider "reviving and adapting mixed juries that would require equal numbers of Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in cases involving Indigenous people."

Trespass and the defence of property

Narratives about property, trespass, and rural crime played a big part in the Stanley trial and its media coverage, write Alexandra Flynn of the Allard School of Law and Estair Van Wagner of Osgoode Hall. The authors consider the implications regarding the defence of property, which was not put to the jury, but carries larger consequences for Indigenous peoples:

"It reflects the extent to which Treaty 6 and Indigenous relationships with land are generally ignored in criminal law tests for "peaceable possession." Specifically, traditional territory is never peaceably possessed, so the defence of property is not available to Indigenous peoples seeking to defend these lands. Moreover, although Treaty 6 is rooted in an agreement to share the land and does not recognize features of colonial law, such as exclusive ownership, the "reasonableness" of Stanley's violent defence of his farm did not account for Indigenous worldviews and laws."

Our future as lawyers

Signa A. Daum Shanks of Osgoode Hall draws a few conclusions from all of the above. There were obvious problems with what transpired at trial, such as the poor handling of forensic evidence. But just as concerning is that issues, surrounding the defence of property in particular, were "not raised by Crown counsel, defence counsel, and the trial judge." Ultimately, the lesson is we need to think more meaningfully, as a profession, about what happens when "when certain protocols, procedures, and case law are not observed—and the resultant perception that the law and its precedents are only available to protect certain members of society." She invites us to do our part in making the system better for everyone by reflecting on how we can improve our legal profession.

Vavilov and marginalized communities in immigration law

Moving on to administrative law, Jamie Chai Yun Liew of the University of Ottawa assesses the new approach to judicial review in Canada, following the Supreme Court of Canada's Vavilov ruling, in the immigration law context. She's somewhat pleased. A more robust reasonableness standard of review ought to make tribunals and courts more mindful of how individual are affected by a decision, she writes. There is also renewed emphasis on our international obligations, which will be of use to immigration advocates. However, she argues, the top court did not satisfactorily resolve issues around when to intervene where there is "internal discord" about the interpretation of a provision that becomes "serious, persistent and unresolvable." As such, Vavilov avoids taking a principled stance on statutory interpretation.