Canada chief justice decries high costs of access to justice News
Canada chief justice decries high costs of access to justice

[JURIST] Canadian Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin [official profile] told the Canadian Bar Association [profession website] Saturday that access to the country's legal system needs to be more affordable. She said "the price of justice should not be so dear" and called access to justice a "basic right." In March, a Toronto Star investigation [Star report]revealed that a three-day civil trial in Ontario costs about $60,000. The Star has more.

In May, however, the Supreme Court of Canada [official website] unanimously ruled [JURIST report] that there exists no constitutional right to access legal services in Canada. The holding overturned two lower court decisions that had declared British Columbia's seven percent tax on legal fees unconstitutional because it made hiring a lawyer prohibitively expensive for low-income people.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.