Family Violence and Evolving Judicial Roles: Judges as Equality Guardians in Family Law Cases

Access-to-justice studies initiated by Canadian lawyers and judges in the past four years have described the urgent need for family law reform. Reports from the studies discuss the need for a cultural shift—a fresh approach and a new way of thinking—in the reform process. A Roadmap for Change, the final report of the National Action Committee on Access to Justice, emphasizes the importance of providing justice, not just access: Providing justice—not just in the form of fair and just process, but also in the form of fair and just outcomes—must be our primary concern. This article deals with the need to take a fresh look at the roles and responsibilities of judges in family law cases to ensure fair and just outcomes. Applying an equality-based analysis, this article emphasizes the importance to all family law cases of identifying family violence when it exists, and assessing its impact on the outcome at all stages of the judicial process—including judicial dispute resolution conferences. All justice system professionals, including lawyers, have a role to play in achieving fair and just outcomes; the responsibility does not just fall at the feet of judges. However, as guardians of Canada\u27s justice system and its constitutional values, judges are accountable to the people courts serve. Because of this they have a particularly important and unique leadership role to play

One Judge for One Family: Differentiated Case Management for Families in Continuing Conflict

Understanding the differences between family cases and other types of litigation is essential for an appropriate response to family disputes. Judges have a role in family cases that markedly differs from the traditional judicial role. The authors argue that an effective and accessible family justice system requires pre-trial and post-trial case management by a single judge, an approach to family justice reflected in the slogan: One judge for one family. Judges should have the necessary knowledge, skills, and training needed to resolve family disputes and to help effect changes in parental behaviours and attitudes, as well as the willingness to collaborate effectively with non legal professionals. A differentiated approach to the way each family case is managed is required, varying with the nature of the case, the nature and level of the conflict, and the stage of the litigation process. The paper includes consideration of Canadian approaches to judicial case management, including analysis of the small body of reported case law on the reasons for judicial managing and monitoring family cases before and after trial, and on recusal—when to stop case management

Young People as Humans in Family Court Processes: A Child Rights Approach to Legal Representation

The authors, a retired British Columbia Supreme Court judge and a senior member of Ontario’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer, address the important issue of legal representation for children. They are co-chairs of the Steering Committee which guided the development of the Canadian Bar Association’s new and comprehensive Child Rights Toolkit. As such, they are well-placed to discuss how a child rights approach, as required by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Canada is a ratifying party, supports legal representation for children who find themselves caught in contentious family law proceedings before the courts

Penguin biogeography along the West Antarctic Peninsula: Testing the canyon hypothesis with Palmer LTER observations

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is home to large breeding colonies of the ice-dependent Antarctic Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae). Although the entire inner continental shelf is highly productive, with abundant phytoplankton and krill populations, penguin colonies are distributed heterogeneously along the WAP (Ducklow et al., 2013, in this issue). This ecological conundrum targets a long-standing question of interest: what environmental factors structure the locations of Adélie penguin "hot spots" throughout the WAP

Winter and spring controls on the summer food web of the coastal West Antarctic Peninsula

Understanding the mechanisms by which climate variability affects multiple trophic levels in food webs is essential for determining ecosystem responses to climate change. Here we use over two decades of data collected by the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research program (PAL-LTER) to determine how large-scale climate and local physical forcing affect phytoplankton, zooplankton and an apex predator along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). We show that positive anomalies in chlorophyll-a (chl-a) at Palmer Station, occurring every 4-6 years, are constrained by physical processes in the preceding winter/spring and a negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Favorable conditions for phytoplankton included increased winter ice extent and duration, reduced spring/summer winds, and increased water column stability via enhanced salinity-driven density gradients. Years of positive chl-a anomalies are associated with the initiation of a robust krill cohort the following summer, which is evident in Adelie penguin diets, thus demonstrating tight trophic coupling. Projected climate change in this region may have a significant, negative impact on phytoplankton biomass, krill recruitment and upper trophic level predators in this coastal Antarctic ecosystem

Penguin Biogeography Along the West Antarctic Peninsula Testing the Canyon Hypothesis with Palmer LTER Observations

The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is home to large breeding colonies of the ice-dependent Antarctic Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae). Although the entire inner continental shelf is highly productive, with abundant phytoplankton and krill populations, penguin colonies are distributed heterogeneously along the WAP (Ducklow et al., 2013, in this issue). This ecological conundrum targets a long-standing question of interest: what environmental factors structure the locations of Adélie penguin “hot spots” throughout the WAP

A Longitudinal Study of Medicaid Coverage for Tobacco Dependence Treatments in Massachusetts and Associated Decreases in Hospitalizations for Cardiovascular Disease

Thomas Land and colleagues show that among Massachusetts Medicaid subscribers, use of a comprehensive tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy benefit was followed by a substantial decrease in claims for hospitalizations for acute myocardial infarction and acute coronary heart disease

Gender and Justice Public Forum

A public discussion presented by SFU\u27s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and Pivot Legal Society Is our justice system effectively meeting the needs of women? If not, what are the impacts for women’s safety, security and equality? This session explored the barriers that some say prevent women from having full and equal access to justice system. The session looked at the gendered impacts of the erosion of publicly funded legal aid in BC. The speakers also talked about the roadblocks that prevent women from challenging discriminatory and harmful laws and the structural issues, oversights and prejudices that prevent victims of male violence from engaging with the justice system. We will also take a look at the claims of some men’s rights groups that BC’s courts are biased in favour of women and talk about strategies to promote meaningful, universal and equitable access to justice. A Public Talk by the Honourable Donna Martinson, Retired Justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court and a Deputy Judge of the Yukon Supreme Court with community panellist

Family Violence and Evolving Judicial Roles: Judges as Equality Guardians in Family Law Cases

Access-to-justice studies initiated by Canadian lawyers and judges in the past four years have described the urgent need for family law reform. Reports from the studies discuss the need for a cultural shift—a fresh approach and a new way of thinking—in the reform process. A Roadmap for Change, the final report of the National Action Committee on Access to Justice, emphasizes the importance of providing justice, not just access: Providing justice—not just in the form of fair and just process, but also in the form of fair and just outcomes—must be our primary concern. This article deals with the need to take a fresh look at the roles and responsibilities of judges in family law cases to ensure fair and just outcomes. Applying an equality-based analysis, this article emphasizes the importance to all family law cases of identifying family violence when it exists, and assessing its impact on the outcome at all stages of the judicial process—including judicial dispute resolution conferences. All justice system professionals, including lawyers, have a role to play in achieving fair and just outcomes; the responsibility does not just fall at the feet of judges. However, as guardians of Canada\u27s justice system and its constitutional values, judges are accountable to the people courts serve. Because of this they have a particularly important and unique leadership role to play

Young People as Humans in Family Court Processes: A Child Rights Approach to Legal Representation

The authors, a retired British Columbia Supreme Court judge and a senior member of Ontario’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer, address the important issue of legal representation for children. They are co-chairs of the Steering Committee which guided the development of the Canadian Bar Association’s new and comprehensive Child Rights Toolkit. As such, they are well-placed to discuss how a child rights approach, as required by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Canada is a ratifying party, supports legal representation for children who find themselves caught in contentious family law proceedings before the courts