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Page 4 December 7, 2015 • Law Times www.lawtimesnews.com sponsors, and we are trying to co- ordinate for more creative service delivery so that more people can be assisted," Boulakia says, adding that the current demands on refu- gee lawyers is starting to exceed the supply. "Most refugee lawyers already do a great deal of pro-bono work, and this is layered on prac- tices which are chronically under- funded. "So they have the expertise, but are already in great demand and stretched thin for resources," he says, adding he hopes more refu- gee experts will step forward to help. Boulakia says that while the or- ganization is pleased to play a role, one concern the Refugee Lawyers Association has is the lack of a clear plan to resettle refugees. "Because this process is being developed while it is being imple- mented, clarity from government on where expert lawyers can assist would be helpful. We are glad to support the government's effort." Co-founder of the RSSP Jackie Swaisland, an associate at Wald- man and Associates of Toronto, says there are about 1,000 volun- teer lawyers across the country ready to assist non-government- sponsored refugees find a home in Canada. Of those 1,000 volunteers that include lawyers of many disci- plines, articling and supervised students, and immigration con- sultants, 600 have already received in-person training and more ses- sions are currently being orga- nized for January. The program, spearheaded by the Faculty of Law at the Uni- versity of Ottawa, helps groups or individuals hoping to sponsor a refugee expedite the process with pro-bono legal assistance by the volunteers. The idea was borne out of a conversation between Swais- land and University of Ottawa professor Jennifer Bond, a special advisor to the Ministry of Citizen- ship and Immigration. "We knew we had to mobilize lawyers and wanted to figure out how to do that," Swaisland says. "Government sponsorship is one thing, but we want to also make sure we're able to support all of these privately sponsored refugees. "The program has officially been in place for just two months and we've already had such a huge response from the legal commu- nity. It's amazing." Swaisland says the demands are already high on the program with a backlog of about 450 claims in Toronto, and an additional 450 in Ottawa. In the next couple of months, the goal is to start creating teams of lawyers who can assist refugees deal with any potential problems that may arise. LT ref lected a reasonable balance between the competing Charter values in light of the broad statu- tory objective of regulating in the public interest. With an impending matter in Ontario, and one working its way through the courts in B.C., it's a matter with which law societies across the country have been grappling. The main concern is that under Trinity's promotional materials for the proposed law school, students are required to annually read, understand, and pledge to the terms of the Community Cov- enant, which directs students to adopt a religious lifestyle and that "sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage between one man and one woman." The Nova Scotia society takes the stance of its peers in Ontario and B.C., according to its factum of appeal, ". . . that while the state cannot prohibit the exercise of religious beliefs, it has an obligation not to pro- mote or support those beliefs to the detriment of those who do not share them." In its factum, the NSBS states the court failed to recognize that the society has an obligation to respect equality rights that are engaged by its decisions and to reasonably balance those rights with religious freedoms. The Supreme Court there had ruled that no equality rights were en- gaged, but the NSBS argues in its factum that while Trinity has a right to preclude homosexual, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgen- dered people from attending its law school, it "is not entitled to have its degree accredited by the Society when the Society has determined that to do so is not in the public interest or in accor- dance with its own obligations under the Charter and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act." In its factum, Trinity requests the court to find correctness is the standard of review and that while the NSBS has jurisdiction to determine if a student is qual- ified to article, it does not have express authority to decide the school's Community Covenant is unlawfully discriminatory. Trinity states that because of the impact on the administration of justice as a whole, the ques- tions being raised by the NSBS require uniform and consistent answers. "If the standard of review is reasonableness [as opposed to correctness], different law so- cieties (and different Colleges of Teachers or other regulators) may reach different conclusions on whether the Community Covenant is discriminatory. In- deed, they have done so," Trin- ity states in its factum. "The fact Canadian law societies have entered into a mobility agree- ment is a reason for a uniform and consistent ruling on TWU's Community Covenant." Meanwhile, the Law Society of Upper Canada has also re- cently approved an additional $350,000 in the 2016 budget for the general counsel office, bringing its total to $750,000 in part to assist in the Trinity mat- ter. Trinity has an appeal of the Ontario divisional court ruling and LSUC communications advisor Susan Tonkin said in an e-mail to Law Times that it is still waiting for the date to be set. "It really comes down to our belief that the scope of the so- ciety's mandate has to be much broader than that, [which] was suggested by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in order for the society to regulate in the public interest and to address issues relating to the administration of justice," Hickey says. TWU did not return requests for comment by press time. LT NEWS Juror ruling prompts call to look at Criminal Code BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times ith the Ontario Court of Appeal having ruled on jurors' use of extrinsic informa- tion in a recent case, the president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association says it may be necessary to amend the Criminal Code in order to get a better handle on the issue. "You can't say if jurors are or are not doing this at any level that is ap- preciable because you only find out in the rare case where a juror hap- pens to mention something," says Anthony Moustacalis. "Maybe jurors really do obey the judge's instructions. In my experi- ence, it seems that they generally do. But do I really know? The an- swer is no. Maybe they're Googling stuff all the time." The only way to know for sure and assess the necessity of any changes to the jury system, accord- ing to Moustacalis, is to amend the Criminal Code to allow research- ers to interview jury members anonymously about their experi- ences. "The fact of the matter is that people are people and they might not always remember the limits of what they're allowed to do or they might stray," he says. The comments follow the ap- peal court's ruling in R. v. Farinacci, a case that demonstrated the ease with which jurors can now find information about the defendant outside of the evidence presented during the trial. In their ruling on June 3, a panel of three judges re- fused to overturn the convictions of two brothers for possession of the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. The brothers, Lucas Farinacci and Leonard Fari- nacci Jr., had argued their right to a fair trial had been compromised because jurors in the case, with the help of Google and other sources, had come across information about them that hadn't come up in court. The appeal came about as a result of a chance event at a coffee shop. Prior to sentencing but after the brothers' conviction, someone at the coffee shop overheard one of the ju- rors, in a conversation with a friend, mention that another me mber of Zero-tolerance conundrum Lawyers say pendulum has swung too far against accused in domestic violence cases BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times he justice system has taken the idea of zero toler- ance in domestic assault to such an extreme that it's unfair to defendants and no longer works in the best interests of Ontario families, says a 40- year veteran of criminal law. It's an opinion, however, vociferously opposed by at least one lawyer who helps victims of domestic violence. Leo Adler, of Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman, says the issue of domestic assault has become "political football" over the last 25 to 30 years with largely undesirable results. While Adler emphasizes he doesn't want to diminish the tragedy of family violence, he says the situation has now reached a point where police called to family violence situa- tions are unduly afraid to release the defendant even in cases that don't appear serious. "Nobody wants to be the person who says, 'O.K., I'm going to release you,' because you might be the one in a million or whatever the statistic is who might end up killing your spouse," says Adler. "In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred. You simply have the word of the complainant. And the person gets arrested and I can tell you that again in the majority of cases, the police don't even bother to try to take a statement from the accused, usually the male. . . . They don't ask because it doesn't make a difference because they're going to arrest you no matter what." Bail hearings in domestic violence cases, he says, are "a l- ways run on the presumption of guilt" and, if the court does grant bail, it's generally under strict conditions with the de- fendant required to live with a surety. The result, according to Adler, is often a divided family with the added financial strain OBA LAUDED Association honoured for mental-health efforts P4 CAMPAIGN SPENDING Bencher candidate calls for expense limits P6 FOCUS ON Legal Innovation P8 'In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred,' says Leo Adler. Photo: Robin Kuniski See Silence, page 2 See Bail, page 2 There's no way to know if jurors are doing their own research on cases, says Anthony Moustacalis. PM #40762529 & $#&!&jmmm$cYa[bbWh$Yec t7PM/P +VOF Follow LAW TIMES on www.twitter.com/lawtimes L AW TIMES T W Juror ruling prompts call to look at Criminal Code BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times ith the Ontario Court of Appeal having ruled on jurors' use of extrinsic informa- tion in a recent case, the president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association says it may be necessary to amend the Criminal Code in order to get a better handle on the issue. "You can't say if jurors are or are not doing this at any level that is ap- preciable because you only find out in the rare case where a juror hap- pens to mention something," says Anthony Moustacalis. "Maybe jurors really do obey the judge's instructions. In my experi- ence, it seems that they generally do. But do I really know? The an- swer is no. Maybe they're Googling stuff all the time." The only way to know for sure and assess the necessity of any changes to the jury system, accord- ing to Moustacalis, is to amend the Criminal Code to allow research- ers to interview jury members anonymously about their experi- ences. "The fact of the matter is that people are people and they might not always remember the limits of what they're allowed to do or they might stray," he says. The comments follow the ap- peal court's ruling in R. v. Farinacci, a case that demonstrated the ease with which jurors can now find information about the defendant outside of the evidence presented during the trial. In their ruling on June 3, a panel of three judges re- fused to overturn the convictions of two brothers for possession of the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. The brothers, Lucas Farinacci and Leonard Fari- nacci Jr., had argued their right to a fair trial had been compromised because jurors in the case, with the help of Google and other sources, had come across information about them that hadn't come up in court. The appeal came about as a result of a chance event at a coffee shop. Prior to sentencing but after the brothers' conviction, someone at the coffee shop overheard one of the ju- rors, in a conversation with a friend, mention that another me mber of Zero-tolerance conundrum Lawyers say pendulum has swung too far against accused in domestic violence cases BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times he justice system has taken the idea of zero toler- ance in domestic assault to such an extreme that it's unfair to defendants and no longer works in the best interests of Ontario families, says a 40- year veteran of criminal law. It's an opinion, however, vociferously opposed by at least one lawyer who helps victims of domestic violence. Leo Adler, of Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman, says the issue of domestic assault has become "political football" over the last 25 to 30 years with largely undesirable results. While Adler emphasizes he doesn't want to diminish the tragedy of family violence, he says the situation has now reached a point where police called to family violence situa- tions are unduly afraid to release the defendant even in cases that don't appear serious. "Nobody wants to be the person who says, 'O.K., I'm going to release you,' because you might be the one in a million or whatever the statistic is who might end up killing your spouse," says Adler. "In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred. You simply have the word of the complainant. And the person gets arrested and I can tell you that again in the majority of cases, the police don't even bother to try to take a statement from the accused, usually the male. . . . They don't ask because it doesn't make a difference because they're going to arrest you no matter what." Bail hearings in domestic violence cases, he says, are "a l- ways run on the presumption of guilt" and, if the court does grant bail, it's generally under strict conditions with the de- fendant required to live with a surety. The result, according to Adler, is often a divided family with the added financial strain OBA LAUDED Association honoured for mental-health efforts P4 CAMPAIGN SPENDING Bencher candidate calls for expense limits P6 FOCUS ON Legal Innovation P8 'In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred,' says Leo Adler. Photo: Robin Kuniski See Silence, page 2 See Bail, page 2 There's no way to know if jurors are doing their own research on cases, says Anthony Moustacalis. PM #40762529 & $#&!&jmmm$cYa[bbWh$Yec t7PM/P +VOF Follow LAW TIMES on www.twitter.com/lawtimes L AW TIMES T W How the legal community in Ontario gets its news Understand cutting-edge legal affairs, discover [OLSH[LZ[UL^ZHUKILULÄ[MYVTL_WLY[JVTTLU[HY` for just 55 cents a day! 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JOIN IN February 2-6, 2016 Untitled-1 1 2015-12-03 10:16 AM Continued from page 1 Standard of review Demand for legal help is growing Continued from page 1

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