Thursday, September 29, 2016
I was recently listening to a radio program featuring racialized lawyers in Ontario discussing the challenges they faced in the legal profession and was struck by my reaction. I thought: how unfortunate that this was all being shared publicly. Unfortunate, not because I did not believe the experiences of these individuals or sympathize with the challenges they were describing, but because I didn't want people to know about the challenges. Why would anyone hire a racialized lawyer if they knew that the lawyer felt that there was a higher standard placed on them in court, by judges, as compared with their non‑racialized colleagues?
An inquiry into the conduct of Federal Court Judge Robin Camp when he presided over a sexual assault trial raises some hard questions about the impartiality of the Canadian justice system.