Ian Mulgrew: COVID improves northern justice
The pandemic accelerated work and funding commitments to provide needed technological upgrades and new video equipment.

The B.C. legal system was caught flat-footed in many ways by the COVID outbreak last year, but it responded to the crisis with some long-overdue improvements such as the northern bail pilot project.

Championed by Provincial Court Chief Judge Melissa Gillespie, the initiative to conduct virtual bail hearings rather than transporting accused persons from small towns to Prince George is getting encouraging reviews.

“But there is a lot of work to be done,” cautioned David Griffiths, manager of Criminal, Immigration and Appeals at Legal Aid B.C. “It has the potential to be a real benefit for everybody. … The way we did it before is if you were in Fort St. James or Vanderhoof and the court wasn’t sitting that day, you were likely going to be driven to Prince George, and that was a one-way ticket. When you got released, you were released in Prince George and nobody was driving you back home. That wasn’t a benefit for anybody.”

For Indigenous people from a remote community, the experience could be disorienting, exacerbate personal challenges, and result in those without much worldly wisdom being preyed upon in the city.

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Ian Mulgrew: B.C. Law Society opens up ‘innovation sandbox’
B.C.’s legal watchdog has done a welcome about-face after a half-decade of persecuting a Victoria man for offering cheap legal services by surprisingly telling him that they might like him to keep it up.

B.C.’s legal watchdog has done a welcome about-face after a half-decade of persecuting a Victoria man for offering cheap legal services by surprisingly telling him that they might like him to keep it up.

A pleased Jeremy Maddock says he has become part of the Law Society of B.C.‘s “innovation sandbox” program adopted by the governing benchers to improve the delivery of legal services in the province.

“I am obviously frustrated about the amount of time this has taken, and the fact they forced me out of business for a year rather than consenting to a stay pending appeal,” Maddock conceded. “That said, I am cautiously optimistic that the debate has shifted since then to recognize the value of alternative legal services as a means of meeting demand that lawyers can’t.”

A year ago, the professional regulator won an injunction in B.C. Supreme Court to stop Maddock from working for lawyers or helping people in traffic court.

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Ian Mulgrew: B.C. judge’s pro-Medicare door-stopper mauled in court
“I can tell you people who work for a living with their bodies can afford knee surgery … Those are … most affected by this,” lawyer says

The B.C. Supreme Court justice who endorsed restrictions on patients accessing private health care when public surgical queues are so long that they could suffer further harm has been excoriated in front of the Court of Appeal.

The lawyer for private clinics, which have existed since the last century, and two representative patients hammered Justice John Steeves for the lack of logic in his constitutional ruling and being wrong, wrong, wrong.

In two days of fierce criticism before a division of the province’s top court led by Chief Justice Robert Bauman, Geoff Cowper maintained Steeves understated the extent of waiting times, unfairly dealt with the evidence of doctors, gave too much deference to the government and ignored the widespread harm caused by the constraints on access to private care.

“He starts out wrong and he ends up wrong,” Cowper complained. “He didn’t pay attention to the proper questions.”

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Ian Mulgrew: Controversial RCMP ‘choke-hold’ incidents questioned in B.C.
Analysis: Concerns about more than 100 incidents involving the problematic Vascular Neck Restraint have been raised

B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety has found provincial Mounties have been using a controversial sleeper-hold and, in scores of cases, the incident reports did not appear to justify the knock-out technique.

Postmedia has learned that while reviewing RCMP reports from 2019, the ministry’s Policing and Security Branch initially raised concerns about more than 100 incidents involving the problematic Vascular Neck Restraint.

The branch flagged 79 incidents in particular from 2012 to 2018 and notified RCMP E Division (which covers the province) of the apparent discrepancy between the policy on using the technique and what officers were actually doing.

“I’m not surprised at how widespread the use is, and I am also not surprised at the lack of accurate reporting of the use of force by officers,” said Carly Teillet, a community lawyer with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

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