Law Times

www.lawtimesnews.com Law Times / march 17/24, 2008 Page 5 Decisions written from feminist perspective Women's Court hopes to end equality rights neglect A group of female lawyers have formed the Women's Court of Canada to rewrite key Supreme Court of Canada de- cisions from a feminist perspective in hopes of ending what they call a recent neglect of equality rights. "The goal is to spur a debate about what equality means and to do that in a very concrete way, not in an overly abstract academic way," says University of Toronto law professor and WCC co- founder Denise Réaume. "We have the impression that the way equality jurisprudence has gone in the last few years was, in a way, making the debate shut down. People were getting pessi- mistic about the prospects for get- ting anywhere with equality liti- gation, so people were starting to just shut up about it. We thought this is too important for people to just shut up about it. People have to keep talking about what equal- ity can and should mean." The WCC came out of dis- cussions a few years ago at a conference of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, says Réaume, where a group of some 30 female lawyers were pondering the future of equality law. At a dinner meeting, "all of a sudden somebody said, 'You know, we could do a better job of this than the Supreme Court is doing,'" says Réaume, who teaches tort law and discrimina- tion law. "It was something said in frustration, and not really that seriously, but it kind of stuck with everybody." The off-the-cuff remark re- ceived further discussion the fol- lowing morning at the confer- ence, and the group decided that rewriting entire SCC cases "might be a way of really engaging with equality issues at a deeper level," says Réaume, who adds the hope is the rewritten judgments will ap- peal to a wider audience than aca- demic articles would. A few of the women at the LEAF conference volunteered to write a few of the cases, and the idea continued to catch fire, with several other female lawyers jump- ing on board to participate The WCC is now made up of academics, activists, and litigators. Its first set of judgments has been published in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. Their publication was celebrated earlier this month during International Women's Week at York University's Os- goode Hall Law School and the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. The schools held a reception and symposium under the theme "rewriting equality." The project is funded by the Law Foundation of British Co- lumbia, the Law Foundation of Ontario, and the federal Depart- ment of Justice. The group says it is guided by Oscar Wilde's state- ment that, "The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it." Avvy Go, a Toronto law- yer and Law Society of Upper Canada bencher who is writing a WCC case, says the group is a reaction to its members' disap- pointment in the way women's equality issues have been handled by the courts in the past five to 10 years. "There seems to be a regres- sion of the equality rights in terms of the Charter of Rights jurisprudence," she says. "The courts seem to be showing more and more deference to the govern- ment of Canada; they are allowing some questionable laws to be left unchallenged." Canadian Journal of Women and the Law co-editor Janet Mosher, who is an Osgoode pro- fessor, says the initiative dovetails with her publication's goals. "It creates the opportunity to open conversations about differ- ent conceptions of equality," she says. "It creates a written record of some of those ideas. There's lots of academic work about equal- ity, and I think one of the really significant contributions is to put those alternative conceptions into the form of judgments, to show the way alternative conceptions of equality can actually shape the judicial decision itself." Initiatives similar to the WCC are sprouting up in other parts of the world. In the United States, a group of academics published a book rewriting the Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended le- gal segregation in public schools, as a means of revisiting the signifi- cance of that case. The Feminist Judgments Proj- ect in the United Kingdom, which Réaume says was inspired by the Canadian effort, has scholars re- writing any judgment that could benefit from a gender-specific analysis. Réaume has been contacted by people from the legal communi- ties in India and South Africa who would like the WCC's organi- zational help in starting up their own initiatives. Réaume says the group's fu- ture plans include the creation of "ordinary language" versions of Supreme Court equality cases for non-lawyers interested in gaining a better understanding of the state of equality law in Canada. "We're going to keep going," says Réaume, noting the WCC currently has released six rewrit- ten cases with a seventh on its way shortly, while three more judgment writers have recently been recruited. "What I would like to see happen, because I think it would be a really fas- cinating body of scholarship, would be to get to the point where we've got a kind of parallel set of judgments about every s. 15 case that the Supreme Court has ever dealt with." Réaume says she hopes the WCC judgments are also used as learning tools for law students and by litigators who may be able to use some of the arguments to pur- sue court actions. 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SW-COC-002302 dyedurham.ca • Phone: 1-888-393-3874 • Fax: 1-800-263-2772 OFFICE & FURNITURE PRODUCTS D Y E & D U R H A M S I N C E 1 9 9 8 PREFERRED SUPPLIER W e ' r e a C a n a d i a n C o m p a n y Call for our Business Cheques Catalogue, featuring CPA compliant cheques. DD LT RXQTD-03 Print ad 3/4/08 4:12 PM Page 1 BY ROBERT TODD Law Times Denise Réaume says the goal of the Women's Court of Canada is to spur a debate about what equality means. LT The free preview of Law Times innovative digital edition ends in April. To continue having access to the easy-to-read full online version of Law Times Subscribe today Call: 1-888-743-3551 or 905-713-4376 or online at www.lawtimesnews.com If you've not already seen it, visit our web site and experience Law Times in a fully interactive digital format. of academic work about equal- The free preview of innovative digital Mosher, who is an Osgoode pro- fessor, says the initiative dovetails with her publication's goals. "It creates the opportunity to open conversations about differ- ent conceptions of equality," she says. "It creates a written record of some of those ideas. There's lots Mosher, who is an Osgoode pro- fessor, says the initiative dovetails with her publication's goals. "It creates the opportunity to open conversations about differ- ent conceptions of equality," she says. "It creates a written record of some of those ideas. There's lots The free preview of Law Times innovative digital Going, going, (almost) gone!

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