Canadian Lawyer

T he benefits of judicial foreign aid are rarely measurable in concrete terms. But, for Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Marc Rosenberg — a workhorse in the movement to help developing nations enhance their justice systems — a dramatic exception to that rule came during a working foray to China a couple of years ago. Rosenberg was part of a Canadian entourage helping to draft rules for excluding unreliable evidence — coerced confessions, in particular. Overnight, a furor erupted over a Chinese convict who had confessed a decade earlier to murdering his wife, notwithstanding the absence of a body. "Suddenly, his wife showed up — alive," Rosenberg recalled. Humiliated, authorities hurriedly released the man from prison. The incident lent added momentum to the work of the judicial group. Rosenberg would later learn the rate of executions carried out in China began dropping after the exclusionary rule was embraced by lower courts. "I can't really say that our project was responsible for more than a small bit of that change, but we have been told that it was helpful," he says. "When you are involved in something like that, it's very gratifying." A second member of that entourage to China, Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, says she was thrilled a few weeks ago to hear the new rules have been given the imprimatur of China's highest court. "Just think of the many millions of people in China who may be affected by those changes," she says. International Organization for Judicial Training. Guests saw first-hand the new teaching methods Canadian judges were developing, and requests for aid began to come in. The NJI launched its first project in the Philippines soon afterward. Citizens and businesses had lost faith in a court system paralyzed by delay, and the NJI assessment team recognized how vital accessibility was to a broader belief in the country's court system. "It was taking about 19 years to get a trial," Thomson recalls. "It had become an impossible system that gave power to those who could wait it out. So, the niche area we picked to help them with was judicial dispute resolution." In recent years, the bulk of NJI projects have been carried out under the auspices of the federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs. "Our mantra is that we are judge-led and judge-focused," says Brian Lennox, NJI's executive director. "We work with judges on an agreed project with agreed objectives. Our contacts are always judges and courts; not governments." Most projects boil down to advising foreign judiciaries how to create and consolidate judicial institutes and developing all photos courtesy oF NatioNal judicial iNstitute THE JUDGE-TO-JUDGE CONNECTION More than 20 countries now see Canada as a chief architect of their legal stability and reform. From Peru, Vietnam, and Chile, to Jamaica and Ghana, a shifting cast of approximately 50 to 75 Canadian judges has been offering expertise in judicial training, court administration, ethics, judgment writing, and legal reform. Their central mission: to strengthen the global rule of law in ways that will sustain long after they return home. "There is a real attraction to the judge-to-judge connection," says George Thomson, senior director of international programs at the Ottawa-based National Judicial Institute. "It is an enormous high to see them take the model we teach, adapt it, and then teach their judges a skill they need in that country." Judicial aid abroad got started in the 1990s with a smattering of Canadian judges who offered their services through organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, or the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice. Jurists such as Alberta Chief Justice Catherine Fraser and former Supreme Court of Canada judge Claire L'Heureux-Dube — a dymamic, one-woman, global force for human rights and judicial independence abroad — travelled extensively, providing advice and encouragement to law reformers. In a watershed moment in 2004, judges from 80 countries converged on Ottawa for a conference given by the 30 F e b r uary 2014 www.CANADIAN L a w ye r m a g . c o m JAMAICA judicial training programs. Specific projects tend to focus on skills training, judicial ethics, the social context of law, and, to a lesser extent, substantive legal reforms. The Jamaica project is a good illustration. Led by a very enthusiastic chief justice, Zaila McCalla, the country's judiciary were interested in incorporating oral judgments into a court system that relied exclusively on the written form. In a series of trips, Canadian judges helped their Jamaican counterparts understand the virtues and efficiencies of delivering oral judgments and prepared a series of video presentations that could be used to educate the entire judiciary. "We partner with host countries and build their capacity to design and deliver education," says Thomson. "We don't just go in and deliver it ourselves."

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