This week’s blogger is Jeff Rose-Martland, an SRL and citizen advocate, and a member of The Access Revolution Blog Steering Committee.
The first time I met the guy who does my root canals, he offered his hand and said, “Sorry to meet you!” A decade or more later, when I went for another one, he said, “Sorry to see you again!” That was incredibly comforting. With those simple words, he made it clear that a bad tooth wasn’t my fault, it was just a thing that happened.
That’s not the message we normally get. From endless toothpaste and mouthwash commercials, from dental hygienists and dentists, we are told that if we take care of our teeth, we’ll never have a problem. Look, no cavities! The corollary is that if we have any issues, then it’s our own fault. Clearly, we were negligent, we didn’t follow the regimens, listen to the experts, use the thing recommended by 8 out of 10 dentists. If we had, we wouldn’t now be staring at the ceiling, trying to open wider. We beat ourselves up for having a cavity, for letting down the dentist. We feel guilty.
Which is the exact same feeling we get when faced with a legal problem.
I took a free open university course from Yale Law. As a student, I encountered an interesting fact: in any three-year period, a person encounters at least one legal issue. From traffic tickets, to wills, all the way up to big, ugly courtroom issues, the law is a significant part of our life experience. And yet, with legal issues, we constantly feel like we are being judged and found wanting. Do we have enough assets or is the lawyer going to laugh at our will? If we contest that ticket, we’ll have to go to court and argue that the light was yellow – but we have no evidence, and the judge and prosecutor and cop are going to laugh at our feeble attempts to defend, so paying is just easier. Suing my former tenant for damage to the apartment… well, it’s my fault for renting to her, isn’t it? The more complex the issue, the more guilt and shame we feel.
As with teeth, society and the media promote a particular narrative: that only certain people wind up in court. There’s the rich, who can afford to have a lawyer on retainer to deal with even petty arguments – the sort of thing non-rich people settle by shouting or just avoiding each other. Anyone else with legal troubles has clearly made bad life choices: drove too fast, married the wrong person, rented to the wrong tenant, didn’t demand fair treatment up-front, said or did something wrong… or whatever. If you need a lawyer, you’ve messed up. It’s on you. Regular, good, normal, sensible people never have legal problems.
That’s the myth we embrace.
Yet, in any 3 year period… see the disconnect?
We can brush and floss and visit a dentist twice a year, and still get cavities. Not our fault, just a thing that happens. Similarly, we can be good, law-abiding citizens, and still encounter legal issues, sometimes bad ones. Sometimes it is our fault, sometimes it’s the other side’s, and sometimes it’s just a thing that happened.
Whether you have a lawyer or not, whether you are liable or not, you need to stop beating yourself up for having a legal issue. Law underpins our society and everyone will encounter it. Courts exist not to scare everyone, but to bring fairness and resolve issues. Being in court doesn’t mean that you have failed at life.
These things just happen.
it is a life fail if you are self represented, you will be most likely declared vexatious, no lawyer will help you for criticizing the courts system, And judges will not examine the actual evidence in your case,, but try to assume you are mentally ill. So,, no access is provided to any legal remedy,, and every so many years when you need to approach the law for whatever reason,,you won’t be able to,
This is so true Sandra with my help my wife won a Summary Judgment for a “workplace harassment” “constructive dismissal” case as a SRL but damages were dimished to the lowest level possible because the judge assessing the damages said that my wife (the Plaintiff) “was to blame for calling her husband for help” stating that the male supervisor half her age who was yelling and cursing at her was a “nice young man”. Alberta Judges are a “conspiracy club”.
The real reason my wife was treated with such “victim blaming” is because I proved that Judges in Alberta hold self-represented litigants persona non grata. I have transcript evidence to prove it. It’s a disgrace and am in the process of preparing a whole report for submission to the CJC and all Media.
The record to date would suggest that regardless of the merits of your complaint(s) the media will take no interest and you’ll get nowhere with the CJC (the only question there being whether the Executive Director will reject your complaint citing his own alleged authority or pass it along to a Council member to reject it).
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That said, the situation is in flux. The many people – judges, MPs, Senators, etc. – who have heard from me know that what reporter / author Christie Blatchford referred to in her book, “Life Sentence” as “a day of reckoning” is indeed coming. It could be said that it is at hand, but the wheels of the machinery are close to being seized.
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Most of us who have or have had meritorious cases regrettably will not see any justice, but we should not give up. The record of the formal results (most of them anyway) of my own journey is accessible on CanLII with a single link – https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/#search/jId=bc,unspecified&sort=decisionDateDesc&id=Budgell&origJId=bc . That record spans more than twelve years. Now I’m about to initiate another judicial review, challenging a claim in a letter I received a few days ago from an office of B.C.’s Ministry of Solicitor General regarding the legislature’s engagement of former Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin to act as a “Special Investigator”.
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What we all perceive are problems that are chronic. They are evidence of not only complacency and arrogance but also incompetence. Governing institutions that are incompetent can be challenged. They must be challenged.
The mental illness ploy was used by the defence to discredit me using a letter I submitted that outlined the effect an illegal eviction was having on me.
But it wasn’t this that sunk my ship, it was the fact that the Social Justice Tribunal member did not seem to believe that I was telling the truth, no matter what the circumstance. At one juncture, I had to remind her that at some point, she would have to accept that I was telling her exactly what happened, that I was speaking the truth, not my truth, but _the_ truth.
My finding, having been through four hearings, is that the SJTO is biased in favour of the status quo. They are not for the tenants, but rather go along with whatever the landlord says.
Currently, I await the summation of my hearing of June 19/19. They say is it coming soon and apparently, was finally
released on Thursday, August 29/19. I wrote to remind them of my new address; still, nothing has arrived and I have a 1A next week pending on these results.
What an incredible boondoggle that started in November 2018 and has yet to be finalized.
You can search the Published SJTO Decisions here http://www.sjto.gov.on.ca/en/decisions/ You click into the date on the top right and can search all “published” Decisions.
So right. There is a stigma much like people with mental health issues.
Most of us SRL would never intentionally shoot ourselves in the foot or beat ourselves up!
In fact most of us are very angry, if not righteously angry, that we have NOT RECEIVED JUSTICE !
We are angry that we have been abused or defrauded and negligently represented and or negligently misrepresented.
We know the truth and we know our adversary knows the truth and we know that “the system” has failed us so far!
Who is working for whom?
My take on “Access to Justice” [AC2] is that it something we SRLS are striving for but will be blocked by the Courts for as long as possible. As the “legal system” of Lawyers (not all), Judges (not all but a higher % in certain jurisdictions), Court Registrars( as high as the Supreme Court) Court Staff and others employed in “the system” enjoy the Ststus Quo with their major goals to clear the dockets! As it stands AC2 is analogous to saying one has access to millions by buying a lotto max. In fact a SRL has a better chance with lotto than leave at the SCC.
That’s very true. Life is a form of roller coaster ride, one must always have to be ready for any kind of challenges around. Law underpins our society and everyone will encounter it. Courts exist not to scare anyone, but to bring fairness and resolve issues. I completely agree with you on this.