Canadian Lawyer

OPINION congratulated the Supreme Court for tempering justice with mercy. The Globe and Mail said: "The court found a way . . . to free Ms. Ryan from the justice system's claws, while stopping short of making a case for hit men. . . . It would have been madness to continue to prosecute Ms. Ryan." Barbara Kay in The National Post had a different view. She accused the Supreme Court of gender bias. Kay wrote: "When a witness demonstrably intent on murder is given full latitude to make her case, possibly cut from whole cloth, while the intended victim, painted as a villain, is denied his right to face his accuser, what are we to think?" This sort of newspaper commentary is par for the course. But a novel and dramatic opinion about R. v. Ryan came from an unexpected source, delivered in a unique way. A few days after the judgment, Michael Ryan himself posted a measured and compelling nine-minute video on YouTube criticizing the Supreme Court and giving his side of the story. The Supreme Court, he said, had denied the truth to the Canadian public. The judgment was a "farce and a disgrace to our Canadian judicial system." At the time of writing this column, almost 230,000 people have watched the video. More than 1,800 comments have been left on the YouTube site, the overwhelming majority of them favourable to Michael Ryan. Almost 4,000 people "liked" the video, and only 125 disliked it. The national and international press have reported extensively on what he had to say. The video's reach has been extraordinary. There's nothing new, of course, about YouTube videos commenting on legal matters. The search phrase "Supreme Court of Canada" produces over 2,000 hits on the online video site. If you rank them by relevance, the top videos include an Osgoode Hall Law School posting about a visit by Justice Andromache Karakatsanis (130 views), a University of Manitoba law faculty posting of a lecture given by the Supreme Court Registrar (40 views), and a University of Saskatchewan law school lecture entitled "Will the Supreme Court of Canada protect our right to access government?" (47 views). The paltry audience for these videos shows a startling lack of interest in traditional commentary on the Supreme Court and its cases. But Ryan's video is a different kettle of fish. It's wildly popular because it comes from someone intimately and emotionally involved in the case. Because it has the immediacy and drama of real life. A video like Ryan's is attractive to a large, potentially huge, audience. It takes the issues and the debate away from the control of the legal and media establishment and makes them accessible and interesting to everyone. It makes the law everybody's business (that is why you can expect the legal profession, for the most part, to oppose this development). Why not a permanent YouTube or television channel that offers a platform, not for the usual commentators looking in from the outside, but for actual participants in court cases? A channel that Michael Ryan's nine-minute video response to the Supreme Court decision is on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=yq2WWsY8Rmc will make the drama and importance of the law accessible and interesting to everyone? A channel that will enhance broad understanding and appreciation of our justice system? And one that will give those whose voices have been stifled — people like Michael Ryan — an opportunity to speak out? I can hear the objections and howls of outrage. If such an outlet exists, traditionalists will say, the law will become a circus. The courts will be subject to unreasonable criticism that will destroy confidence in the justice system. Legal issues will too easily be politicized. Disputes will never be fully resolved. I don't think any of that necessarily follows. What would follow would be a great surge of interest in the law and how it works. And that would be a wonderful thing. Philip Slayton's latest book, Mighty Judgment: How the Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life, is now available in paperback. Follow him on Twitter @philipslayton. Brookfield Place, 181 Bay Street Suite 1800, Box 754, Toronto, ON M5J 2T9 www.airdberlis.com www.CANADIAN rdBerlis_CL_May_13.indd 1 L a w ye r m a g . c o m M ay 2013 17 13-04-12 12:06 PM

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