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340 meters per second

Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.

&mdash Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Saturday, May 26, 2007

You have the right to whatever they give you.

Interesting legal tidbit: did you know that, according to both the constitution and the Supreme Court, one is not necessarily entitled to be represented by a lawyer in court? From an article over at Macleans.ca:

Canadians have no constitutionally guaranteed right to a lawyer in all legal proceedings they undertake, says the country's top court.

(...)

The high court said that, although it may be easy to sympathize with that assertion, there is no constitutional foundation for the claim.

The entire (brief) CP article is available here (will launch a new window).

The issue was raised by Dugald Christie, a BC lawyer who spent much of his professional career crusading for increased access to legal services; he argued that the huge expense associated with legal action removes the possibility of justice for the poor. In its 9-0 decision, the Supremes disagreed with him, stating that if they supported his arguments, they'd be opening the door to further arguments that the federal government had a mandate to establish a nationwide legal aid system, which just be too damned expensive.

Better by far for justice to remain a commodity made valuable by scarcity.

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