Upgrade Canadian Justice System

I think the law is a wonderful thing that protects our society but is also far too often unfair and illogical in how law is used to shape our lives and this world.  I like many lawyers and judges and court masters that I have met - even after dealing with them.  It is a hard job they do, I just think that in order to keep up with the modern democratic world, the Canadian Justice system needs a major operating system upgrade to better protect the public's legal rights and pocketbooks... We have to be more active to demand what works for better helping the general public, rather than allowing the law society and judges create rules that protect only them, serving to increase legal revenues and their unquestioned powers to do whatever they want - and get away with it - legally.

If you have a problem with lawyers or judges abusing your legal rights or making very questionable decisions against you, you can only complain to their co-professionals (ha, ha good luck with that ) - there is nobody empowered to help the average person.  Doctors, Dentists, Engineers, Nurses, and Teachers can be easily taken to court - but how do you sue a lawyer or judge and get a fair chance at success ?  We all know that lawyers and judges cover for each others to protect their own profession and to milk the public for as much as possible.   What we lack is a way to effectively protect ourselves from being cheated and abused by crafty lawyers and subtly abusive judges.   ( exampleA Canmore Rabbits: Onischuk v Canmore, HMQRA  ABQB 1101-14786   exampleB - more later)

A classic example is the case of Lucy the Elephant in Reece v Edmonton whereby a couple of non-animal friendly (pro-government) judges crafted some legal arguments to (wrongly) give dictatorship style decisions: that absolutely no evidence of defendants can override professional healthcare evidence of qualified veterinarians, and that nobody in the public has any legal rights to challenge any wrong-doings of government and especially for government animal abuses.  When nobody in the public can FAIRLY challenge any government wrongs in Court then we are living in a communist style dictatorship.  One Appeal Judge Ms.Fraser was the solo voice of reason - but without any public mechanism to question, suspend or overturn the decision of the crafty Judges we the public must now live with the self-serving (job security/promotion) legal decisions that are  contrary to the fundamentals of justice ( proof, all equal before law) - and that such wrong decisions then act to spread the damage to cases that cite the two errant judges. other examples can easily be found - but their is no independant agency to track and investigate legal complaints so the total damages are unknown.

For each province, we need to legislate at least one publicly elected Legal Review Board that oversees the law society, law courts and judges. Like a driving license, both lawyers and judges should get demerits for bad behaviour and legal abuses should result in fines, suspensions and if continued then termination. Of course with good behaviour and time those demerits drop off. This would also help the legal review board to balance the law society opinions of who should be promoted to a judge based on actual performance as rated by the people directly affected by their lawyers actions - not just good old boys clubs and political connections.  Let the truly meritorious rise to the top - and stay their only by continued good performance ( just like any other job of employee reviews - welcome to the real world everyone else copes with ).

Lawyers could then also complain to the independent Legal Review Board about bad judges without fear of being cast out of their law society or from being blocked to become a judge someday.  The LRB complaints and demerits assigned to lawyers and judges could also be used to determine which judges deserve to be trusted as appeal court judges and supreme court judges. Everybody wins as the overall system would be fairer and better balanced with honest feedback of the public whom are now far too often, simply victims and sources of revenue for the legal profession.

Complainers would pay the Legal Review Board investigators a modest filing fee ($50) plus an modest hourly investigation fee (about $15/hr) that would be further subsidized by the governments of the province and Canada.  The way it is now, you would have to pay $600 to file an appeal plus $100/hr for courts transcripts, plus all the legal costs and lawyer fees BEFORE the Court of Appeal would even consider to look at your case (which you have to scramble to file an appeal within 20 days - why ? to make you go to a lawyer.  I note that in Canada you do not have a legal right to appeal in statutes - if you miss the appeal filing deadline you have to ask permission (!! not a Charter right!!), that is often refused - why ? also why do we not have the legal charter right to a trial by jury - so judges can fix your case to go the way they want it to, especially when suing government, big corporations, lawyers or any politically connected friends )

There are a lot of fine lawyers and super good judges, and though the work is hard, so are many other jobs and the lawyers and judges do get paid very well.  The independent Legal Review Board would help protect good judges and lawyers and ensure their high standards are met by other lawyers and judges. 

It is up to the public to demand a better system and better rules to protect ourselves, our hard earned money, our legal and civil rights of democracy.  People fought and died for thousands of years to make democracy better for us - let's not be lazy and let this slip away to continue an undemocratic, archaic system of law that is far too often an unfair, abusive dictatorship of unquestionable and zero-accountability judges and lawyers  - simply because there is no real world EFFECTIVE feedback mechanism to regulate the legal system.  It really is up to YOU to urge government representatives to get laws passed to better protect the public and to empower an independent Legal Review Board.

PS - I think we need to hire more good judges. For example the Supreme Court of Canada should have four courts - West (BC, AB, SK, MB) Central (ON) East (QB) and Maritimes (PEI, NB, NS, NF-Lab) to deal with all of the cases- not just 10 percent of all the applications they receive from lower Courts. This will ensure the lower Courts are following Canada higher court decisions properly and not playing favorites to governments or big corporations. To better protect the public only the best Judges would be able to qualify for Supreme Court based on their demerits records in lower Courts. Oh yes, by the way, Supreme Court decisions should be first shared among judges to resolve differences in opinion before a judgement is passed - and if the decision is split by one vote, then that has to go back to the drawing board ( a clear majority should always be given ) or must be reviewed after two years to see the impact of the decision.

PPS -  the law courts could save thousands of acres of trees every day and greatly reduce storage space - Provincial and Queens Bench courts should only require one original paper form of court documents and evidence documents that should be electronically scanned by the courts and made available online (see US Federal Courts 1990's ).  All other copies of evidence and often thick books of authorities-case laws should only be filed as PDF format on CDROMs.  On appeal, the Court of Appeal should then automatically receive CDROMs of all scanned Court documents filed at the Queens Bench Court file - thus ensuring accuracy of information and saving everyone from having to reproduce 5 paper copies to the Court of Appeal as well as to each of the Respondants.  Time for all the Canada Law Courts to go enviro-friendly !!