Canada’s Judges Reaching Out

I read with interest a significant two page article by Kirk Makin in this morning’s Globe and Mail focussing attention on the steps that Canada’s judiciary have been making to demystify the legal system and the operations of the courts.

“The whole judicial system depends on public confidence,” said Lance Finch, Chief Justice of British Columbia. “If you don’t have that confidence, people will ignore the courts and the law. … Eventually, you get anarchy.”

As Kirk explains, “Not so long ago, a judge seeking a public profile, let alone explaining his legal worldview, would have been unthinkable. Lawyers ascending to the bench knew they were entering a cloistered world where social isolation was the price of membership. The First Commandment was: Speak only through thy judgments”.

He credits Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin for raising this issue shortly after her appointment with the Canadian Judicial Council and urged its startled members to draft a game plan, including a survey of the cream of the legal establishment in order to gauge its awareness of the judiciary and court structures.

A decade-long marketing campaign ensued. Judges took to podiums, classrooms and the airwaves. B.C.’s Chief Justice at the time, Allan McEachern, created a website to answer questions from the public. His Provincial Court counterpart, Chief Judge Hugh Stansfield, launched a radio call-in show, as did Manitoba Provincial Court Chief Judge Ray Wyant.

Kirk ends by highlighting Justice Harvey Brownstone of the Ontario Court of Justice who wrote a best-selling book on family law, with a web-based talk show, that gets about 50,000 hits a day. “The novelty of a charismatic judge speaking in colourful terms about the strengths and weaknesses of the justice system made Judge Brownstone an overnight media star”.

“I never, ever anticipated that the media would latch on to the book the way they did,” Judge Brownstone said. “I was on about 200 radio and TV talk shows in the first six months.