same reason why nothing is done about property crime. all those revolvling crooks pad the bank accounts of thousands of lawyers. And they pad government coffers with all the PST and GST and business taxes that are gerenated on replacing all that stolen stuff.

My father, who grew up in Nazi occupied Yugoslavia, believed thjat any crime more serious than a traffic ticket should be a capital crime.

Personally, I think we should go back to public floggings: put the criminals on one side of the post and the victims on the other. first, offense = 3 strokes; second 10, third 25, etc. Each new crook gets a new victim to flog them and they won't know if they get a wheelchair bound old lady or a BC Lion linebacker. This way every one gets to "participate" in the legal system and the costs would be much less.

Some good comments Rafe however I would suggest we as a society need to take this thing further. For years in BC and to varying degrees across Canada Lawyers have had a virtual stanglehold on all things legal. I believe its time to ask the question what have they done to deserve such exculusive occupancy. And where there are small pockets of competition who gets to control the numbers? Lawyers of course. Witness Notaries for an example. In Ontario for instance if you get a traffic ticket you can hire an ex cop to assist you in court but not in Lotus Land. Years ago we had document preperation services that the Lawyers gathered around like starving homless people at a free food line. Our small claims courts once a lawyer free zone now even award costs for legal fees. IN my opinion the question is not just how to acheive greater control over the cost and time of our legal systems but indeed we need I feel to ask what and where the relevance of lawyers is within the system. Many of us have spent time and money in court rooms watching as lawyers bounce from court room to court room with conflicting times and cases and judges held up waiting as a lawyer is being payed 2 or 3 times for the same hour of work by different clients. We have seen the number of lawyers increase in family courts where minute points of law are argued and often the best interst of a child become secondary. If a family for example has had a child aprehended it is often over a year before a court even determines if they intial aprehention was justified and by that time often Judges are reluctant to return the child because the child is bonding with the new care givers. Small claims often take 18 months just to come to trial. I think its time the public was allowed to gut the sytem totally. Lets look at alternative systems. Mediation where mediators do not have to be lawyers finding other ways to rake in the dough. NIght courts to dispense Justice in a timely way. Lets look at alternative systems to settle matters legal and lets make lawyers prove thier value to our system IN Greenland where Aborginal people were able to create a legal system based on culture and the need for an alternative system the first thing gutted from it were lawyers. Perhaps its time to do the same here in Canada

Having watched my wife fight her way through the law society to get accredited here, my opinion of the Law Society is very low. They don’t want foreign trained lawyers coming here and “spoiling” the business. My wife came with a British law degree and 7 years working in a Commonwealth country, that degree and experience was worth little in the eyes of the Law Society. MY wife had to attend a “play court” to teach them “court skills” MY wife used to represent clients facing the death penalty and her “opponent” had been a judge and prosecutor in Germany. What a complete waste of time, the Law society wants to block people from coming in, but can’t legally discriminate, so they just make it very difficult in hopes that people will give up.

I have talked to at least 10 families from Asia who have given up on Canada, mainly because they were blocked from being able to work here, they were led to believe that their degrees and skills were valued here, but found out that they were next to worthless. These people have now moved back to India, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore, they intend to tell people not to bother with Canada. All of them were decent hardworking people that wanted a chance to work and raise families. Canada is a the loser in this affair.

It is consoling to see that Mr. Mair has apparently amended his earlier position (in re the costs of jury trials in criminal cases) that the criminal bar is the source of anything but a small proportion of the enormous and exorbitant costs of legal proceedings in this country. With respect to his current column, there is much less in it with which one can disagree.

This remark taken from a thread from the story

If the stories in the T/C are correct today, the union it telling certain crew members not to discuss the issues with BC Ferries executives.This is on the advice of lawyers.

I can just visualize the vultures sitting on the Queen of Prince Ruperts yard arm, drool leaking from their beaks looking down, waiting to swoop down and assist a crew member to avail himself of his surplus funds,of course he’s probably foolish enough to be parted from his money.
Colin says

Colin, I sympathize with your wife’s plight, but really the last thing we require in this country are more lawyers, as we have a surplus, if they weren’t such a useless commodity we could trade them out side the country for something,or even anything, but no one wants them.

Woody
Frankly I think economists should be first on the list, with two lawyers you only get two opinions, but with two economists you get 3 opinons!!

Being married to a lawyer is like being in court everyday, with no appeal!!

I have not changed my mind on Jury trials at all ... in the vast majoriity of cases they bring something to the trial that judges don't - common sense and the real world.

My article on the Picton case was an argument that this was a special case - would anyone argue that? - and that a case such as this was an unreralistic burden to expect ordinary men and women who have jobs and families to bear for what might be years.

Colin says
Being married to a lawyer is like being in court everyday, with no appeal!!

Well if I may suggest Colin, maybe put your self at the mercy of the Court, just maybe, you might get lucky----------------------------------------------------tonight.

I dunno Rafe, legal precedent being what it is, I think a special ruling to eliminate the jury in the Picton trial would end up being more than a one-off thing. Once you make that kind of decision, and effectively limit the options of one accused, it would become much more likely that it would happen again and again. I think your suggestion may look appealing and appropriate in this particular instance - but it would still be a bad idea on balance.

I recall ex-Premier Glen Clark suggesting that ICBC could save tons of money by bringing in no-fault insurance. The Law Society was not amused. The Air India trial cost $120m and the Pickton trial will also be a huge expense. Unfortunately for us the taxpayers the vested interests are a juggernaut. Reining in costs will be an battle royale and I suspect unwinnable.

Woody
I shall throw myself onto the mercy of the court!!! LOL

ICBC has a no-fault limit already: I believe it stands at $300.00 today. If I'm not mistaken, there's a further stipulation that any collisions in a mall parking lot (ie: private property) is now an automatic 50/50 split on liability, effectively nullifying ICBC's responsibility.

G. West, you can't take Rafe seriously on these issues, eh. He just flips a coin and uses the toss to decide which side of an issue he comes down on.

Obviously, if there ever was a case which cried out for the people to be represented it is this one.

The representatives of the government--the Vancouver Police--merely sat on their hands all through the first 90% of the disappearances. We don't need another government official to decide what happened to them and who's responsible.

That's the theory behind the jury system--they represent the people. Kind of a "peer review."