Wallace Craig forgot to add that the new AG ought to reinstate the anti-SLAPP suit Act(Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation." ) that the Liberals dumped. Then the SPCA wouldn't have dared to use this bully-boy terror tactic of threatening innocent people with financial ruin and a court record. Civilized areas of the world protect people from this scummy trick. But not BC.
North Shore News: May 18, 2005
New AG can make a difference
Wallace G. Craig
Contributing Writer
REGARDLESS of the outcome of the general election yesterday, one thing is certain: we will soon have a freshly-minted attorney general.
In a perfect political world it would be essential that the attorney general be a lawyer who has the respect of the bar and bench.
He or she should be a seasoned lawyer who has demonstrated a capability to make principled decisions, a lawyer who will keep the cabinet within the rule of law in all its decisions.
But it is extremely unlikely that our new law minister will hold the premier and fellow ministers at arm's length.
To do so would require invoking the English tradition of "independent aloofness" - a constitutional stance that would preclude engagement in partisan politics.
And so long as the premier continues to have the Ministry of Solicitor General, our new attorney general will have to accept that there are two law ministers.
It is a conundrum for the solicitor general and the attorney general because each has a degree of responsibility for the criminal justice system in the province.
I can only hope that they occupy adjoining offices.
And in jest, I suggest they adopt the practice of old England where two clerks doing the same work would sit on opposite sides of a double desk.
My pipe dream is that the premier will use some common sense and dispense with the expediency of a solicitor general's portfolio leaving us one law minister exercising all the portfolio's constitutional duties and functions.
Nevertheless, once in his or her half-ministry, the attorney general will have to carry out three equally important responsibilities - as a member of the legislative assembly, as a special minister of the Crown and as the government's attorney before the courts.
But from Day 1 the new attorney general will have to shoulder the burden of his predecessor's unfinished business, some of it quite controversial and dysfunctional, for example:
- The 2002 cut in legal aid.
- The baseless denial of reasonable salaries for overworked and understaffed provincial Crown prosecutors.
- The creation of a "task force" to deal with street crime.
Hopefully our incoming attorney general will adopt plain speaking and the maxim: The Buck Stops Here. And that when confronted with the need to make a decision it will not be put in the hands of a pseudo task force.
The principal meaning of "task force" is military: an armed force organized for a special and urgent operation.
When police announce that a particular serial crime is being investigated and label a squad of officers as a task force it may be meaningful.
However in the world of political inaction it becomes an Orwellian illusion of purpose. The street crime task force is an example.
In 2002 the attorney general announced the formation of a Justice Review Task Force, "a co-operative process of law reform. . . that would address . . . street crime issues. . .."
Its members included a chief judge, a chief justice, a deputy minister and the past president of the law society.
In 2004 the attorney general announced: Task Force Tackles Vancouver Street Crime.
How? By having the task force give birth to a Street Crime Working Group - mostly QC (Queen Counsel) lawyers, chief judges and assistant deputy ministers.
They were to target Skid Road and return in March 2005 with "a new criminal justice response to street crime."
And all of this was "to help make the justice system more responsive, accessible and cost-effective."
It seems to me that as the task force circled and circled, street crime worsened and worsened.
I hope you will join me in greeting our new attorney general with a list of things to do.
Here's mine.
Mr. or Ms. Attorney General, would you please:
- Do something about rampant plea-bargaining.
- Ask the B.C. Court of Appeal to scale up its sentencing guidelines.
- Ask our superior court judges to adopt a practice in civil trials of stipulating a definite date for judgment rather than the customary and aggravating process of indefinite adjournment.
- Press the federal government to redefine vagrancy and public nuisance offences in a public order statute that will enable police to restore order and safety in public places.
- End the waffling over B.C.'s polygamists and prosecute them.
- Take steps to ensure that victims of violent crime have access to civil justice. A good start would be to redirect the tax on lawyer's accounts to legal aid - as was originally intended - with a fair portion to be allocated to funding civil actions of needy victims of criminal violence.