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Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50832
letters to the editor Send your letters to: cleditor@clbmedia.ca Check the facts The justice system, and judges in par- ticular, are often unfairly criticized by members of the public or the media who report on court proceedings such as sen- tencings, without knowing the facts of the case. One would expect much more of Ezra Levant, a Calgary lawyer. In his opinion piece in the September 2010 edition ["Honour killings on the rise"], he suggests that Aset Magomadova was convicted of second-degree murder in circumstances that constituted an "hon- our killing" and received a non-custodial sentence because Calgary is a "sanctu- ary" for those who kill Muslim girls. Before he ranted publicly about this perceived injustice, Mr. Levant ought to have checked his facts. The conviction was for manslaughter, an unintentional killing, and the circumstances were at best ignored by Mr. Levant as he mis- informed readers. The justice system is brought into disrepute by such reckless- ness. Mona Duckett Dawson Stevens Duckett & Shaigec, Edmonton Your September 2010 issue gives me two good reasons never to subscribe. You do not fact check your articles. You give regular space to Ezra Levant — allegedly a lawyer — who gets law and/or facts wrong while pushing his ideology. Levant refers to Aset [M]agomadova as a "murderer," and states she was con- victed of the "second-degree murder" of her daughter. Levant then claims the Calgary court which convicted her "declined to order even a day in custody." Pursuant to ss. 235 and 745.4 of Comments from canadianlawyermag.com An of f i cer and a lawyer • Top 10 At lant i c regional f i rms • The future of patent s October 2010 $7.00 Legal aid is broken Re: "Legal aid: a system in peril," October 2010 Suppose your car gets a flat tire, you might be able to wobble and limp to the closest service station, but if you continue driving for a distance, you will cause great damage. Better to park the car and not drive it further. Legal aid is a broken system — a car with a flat tire. Until the system is repaired, legal aid should be parked, engage the emergency brake, and turn off the engine. Continuing to drive with this broken system is causing great damage. Lawyers AND accused are better off with no system in place, than a broken system. If it can't be fixed, junk it. No system is better than a broken system. — excerpt from an online comment from Auto mechanic The legal aid system should be supplemented directly by the profession. The lawyers making $800 to $1,000 per hour are reaping huge benefits, but they do not have the skills to do a criminal trial or provide legal ser- vices in any of the areas where the public really need help. We should establish a levy system and compel every lawyer to pay one to two per cent of gross billings into legal aid, regardless of source. Do not create an exemption for people who do legal aid. Everyone in private practice should pay. The employed lawyers who are licensed by their law societies to remain lawyers, but are in-house, etc., should also have to pay one to two per cent of their gross income as a levy to legal aid. Those monies should in turn be matched by the provincial governments. Then we would be putting our money where we know it is needed. Start to pay the lawyers who are doing the real work with some real income. Furthermore, give legal aid for more areas of legal need. — excerpt from an online comment from Fay Brunning It is interesting that [Fay Brunning] mentions this as a possible solution, namely, a levy so that, in effect, all firms commit a very small propor- tion of their fees to legal aid and their obligations to support those less fortunate and pro bono efforts of lawyers prepared to accept legal aid's grossly reduced rates. I support this solution and, indeed, in my detailed discussions with [reporter Robert] Todd, I mentioned two possible and common sense solutions which would be fair and anything but radical. 1. A very small levy on gross billings of firms who bill above a certain amount. This levy would obviously reduce taxable income and I suspect could by itself restore legal aid. 2. I also pointed out that as of July 1, 2010, Ontario taxes all legal fees an additional eight per cent through the HST so that, in effect, the revenue stream of the province increases significantly. It seems to me that the fair and equitable course of action by our government . . . would be to stream a percentage of this new revenue stream back into the legal aid budget. — excerpt of an online comment from Jordan Weisz www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2010 7 Canada's Criminal Code, the minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life imprisonment, with parole eligibility to be set by the court within the range of 10 to 25 years. Levant's claims must there- fore be false. He would know this if he read just three sentences in the Criminal Code. Levant is either misrepresenting the offence or misrepresenting the sen- tence. Sadly, the misrepresentation of court decisions or sentences is something that is all too common among self-appointed justice critics in Canada. What is espe- cially disturbing is to see it coming from a lawyer and published in a magazine calling itself "Canadian Lawyer." Grant Dicken Chilliwack, B.C. Canadian Lawyer welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to edit for space, taste, and libel considerations. Please include your contact information.