Law Times

Page 6 August 7, 2017 • LAw times www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT u EDITORIAL OBITER By Gabrielle Giroday Wise Iacobucci There is surging public awareness and interest in Canada's relation- ship with indigenous peoples. There are the daily headlines that chronicle controversy around indigenous representation and identity. There are substantive changes underway at law societies and law schools across Canada, in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's calls to action. As a story in this week's Law Times explores, lawyers say there is still so much to be done when it comes to the adequate representation of on-reserve First Nations people on juries. This is not new. Retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci was tasked in 2011 with looking at the relationship between the provin- cial Ministry of the Attorney General and First Nations in Ontario, with the goal of increasing representation on provincial juries of First Nations people living on reserve. "[T]here is not only the problem of a lack of representation of First Nations peoples on juries that is of serious proportions, but it is also regrettably the fact that the justice system generally as applied to First Nations peoples, particularly in the North, is quite frankly in a crisis," said Iacobucci. "If we continue the status quo we will aggravate what is already a serious situation, and any hope of true reconciliation between First Nations and Ontarians generally will vanish. Put more directly, the time for talk is over, what is desperately needed is action." Action, indeed. A spokeswoman for the provin- cial attorney general, Yasir Naqvi, says a final report is on its way from a group formed to figure out how to move Iacobucci's recommendations forward, the Debwewin Jury Review Implementation Commit- tee. It cannot come soon enough. LT ©2017 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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Karen Lorimer Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Brown Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gabrielle Giroday Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alex Robinson Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricia Cancilla CaseLaw Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leah Craven Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phyllis Barone Production Co-ordinator . . . . . . . . .Catherine Giles Electronic Production Specialist . . . Derek Welford Will the law smarten up social media? BY SUSAN DELACOURT T he slogan reads, "All rise," above a picture of TV's famous Judge Judy. "Facebook Court is now in session." The photo and caption are a popular meme on social media — a poke at how arguments can get viral and ridiculous in the digital universe. When "Face- book Court" is in session, you can pretty much assume that mob justice will win the debate. Facebook Court makes us grateful for real courts. While most of us hope we never see the day when serious legal matters are settled by a digital mob, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be taking social me- dia seriously. A recent survey of U.S. and Canadian lawyers revealed a marked increase in litigation related to social media. In Can- ada, more than one-third of lawyers sur- veyed said they had seen a significant or slight increase in litigation or electronic discovery linked to social media. In the U.S., more than half the lawyers surveyed said the same. The survey was conducted by the Rob- ert Half Legal staffing and consulting firm through phone interviews with roughly 200 lawyers in the U.S. and 150 lawyers in Canada. The bigger questions is — do lawyers think it is a good or a bad thing that social media's reach now extends into the le- gal system? And if law is any- thing like politics — and often it is — I'm betting that opin- ions are decidedly mixed. There are plenty of people in politics who will still tell you that social media is too frivolous or even dangerous to serve as a proper tool of democracy. But then there's Donald Trump, turning Twitter into the 21st-century version of fireside chats with the presi- dent — except Trump's chats come in 140-character bursts, sometimes hourly and too often in the middle of the night. Like it or not, Trump makes it impossi- ble to discount the force of social media in politics. Here in Canada, we've had politicians using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to detour around the traditional media for about a decade. It was Stephen Harp- er, not Justin Trudeau, who was the first prime minister to announce his cabinet picks via Twitter, let's remember, during the 2013 ministerial shuff le. Trudeau's office, like Harper's before him, pays a huge amount of attention to posting images and an- nouncements on social me- dia. Though the prime min- isters don't write the tweets themselves (unlike Trump), they pay attention to social media traffic. Often, the quickest way to get an answer from the PMO or a cabinet minister is to pose the question on Face- book or Twitter. In addition, most MPs are using so- cial media in a big way to keep in touch with their constituents — through vir- tual town hall discussions and regular updates. So, politics has had to accept social me- dia as a fact of life, and politicians, even the skeptics, have had to become social media literate. Journalists, too, have had to em- brace this form of media, even as it threat- ens their livelihoods and the traditional business model. Lawyers and the legal profession won't be exceptions, obviously. The power of social media in politics, in fact, may tell us a little bit about why it's becoming such an important part of law. Social media is simultaneously a pur- veyor and gatherer of information — as people are using Facebook to commu- nicate to others, they're also leaving large digital footprints. Through a simple Facebook profile, we can learn about a person's friends, their interests, where they have been travelling — who they like and who they don't like. Personally, I'm pleased to see that so- cial media is playing a bigger role in the legal system. While some may fear social media's effects on the law, I'm wonder- ing about the inverse — how will the law change Twitter and Facebook? The more that people are aware that their social media posts could end up in the courts, the more responsible they may be. Facebook Court is where arguments get dumbed down. Facebook in the courts, however, could be where social media gets smartened up. LT uSusan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based political author and columnist who has been working on Parliament Hill for nearly 30 years. She is a frequent political panellist on national television and author of four books. She can be reached at sdelacourt@bell.net. The Hill Susan Delacourt Susan Delacourt

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