The Lawyers Weekly - April 9, 2010

Supreme Court says
such an order should
only be a ‘last resort’

INCAPACITY
How to survive a
guardianship proceeding
PAGE 9
CRISTIN SCHMITZ OTTAWA

FORGOTTEN

Courts can order criminal lawyers, on pain of contempt, to represent impecunious clients for free “as a last resort” to forestall “serious harm to the administration of justice,” the Supreme Court has ruled 9-0.

The top court’s March 26 ruling in R. v. Cunningham holds that lawyers representing an accused do not have an unfettered right to drop a case already scheduled for a hearing—at short notice to the court and the Crown—simply because their clients can’t, or won’t pay them.

In practice, this was already the law in most of Canada, except in B.C. and Yukon where appeal courts had ruled that judges don’t have jurisdiction to order counsel to continue to represent impecunious accused, and therefore requests to get off the record must automatically be granted.

Counsel after arguing R. v. Cunningham at the Supreme Court last November. Front row (L-R): Gordon Coffin, Ronald
Reimer, Peter Eccles. Back row (L-R): Scott Hutchison, Brent Olthuis, Nils Clarke, John Hunter, Andrea Gonsalves.
CRISTIN SCHMITZ / THE LAWYERS WEEKLY
However the Supreme Court
concluded that criminal courts
do have the authority to control
their own processes — either
inherently in the case of superior
courts, or by necessary implica-
tion in the case of provincial or
territorial courts. As part and
parcel of that authority, courts
have the discretion to refuse to
grant defense counsel’s request
to get off the record for non-
payment reasons in cases where
an adjournment will be neces-
sary and “allowing withdrawal
would cause serious harm to the
administration of justice,” the
court held.

Lawyers and judges
ignore the exceptions to
the support guidelines
PAGE 14
Governance changes to law society introduced by Ontario govt.
JUDGES
How to become a judge
PAGE 22
THOMAS CLARIDGE TORONTO

Changes in Ontario’s Law Society Act portrayed as implementing governance reforms for the province’s law society were introduced in the legislature March 25 as a tiny part of a 122-page omnibus bill dubbed the Creating the Foundation for Jobs and Growth Act.

Just what the eight-para-graph “Schedule 13” of the bill had to do with jobs or growth wasn’t explained. (Nor, for that matter, were the other 120-plus pages.)

When Finance Minister
Dwight Duncan moved first
reading of the bill and it was
approved in a voice vote,
Speaker Steve Peters invited
him to give the customary “short
statement” explaining its con-
tents.

Derry Millar, who thanked the
government “for taking steps to
ensure a dynamic, accountable
and modern governance model
for the law
society.”
PERKS

Since the
eight para-
graphs fail to
deal with most
of the changes
recommended
by the task
force, the law
Is doling out perks to
associates worth it?
PAGE 23
Millar
society issued a press release
with wording that seemed to
reflect uncertainty as to whether
all that was sought had been
accomplished: “We are advised
See LSUC Page 5

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