Access to Justice

From CBC.ca:

A last-minute deal has ended a legal aid boycott in Ontario after the government promised additional funding for the cash-strapped system to keep the dispute from escalating.

The seven-year deal is estimated to provide at least an additional $80 million for the legal aid budget and make up about 75 per cent of the losses those lawyers have suffered amid cuts over the last 20 years, sources told The Canadian Press.

That would bring the budget for legal aid to at least $280 million from the current $200 million.

While the government wouldn’t specify how much additional money could be on the table, it said there would be “unspecified funding” as needed for the additional three years.

But it said it was too early to tell what, if any, more funding may be required.

“We’re very pleased that in a difficult economic time the government committed itself to long-term funding to compensate the service providers, which in turn will increase the availability of quality legal services for defendants and others who can’t afford to hire lawyers,” said Frank Addario, a past president of the Criminal Lawyers Association who spearheaded the boycott.

“This is the longest, largest commitment to legal aid funding that the government has ever made, and I’m very happy that Ontario has grasped the importance of funding this social program and its relationship to the quality of justice in Ontario.”

Attorney General Chris Bentley had initially responded to the boycott by promising a $60 million boost to the program’s annual budget.

That, Bentley said at the time, was the government’s final offer as the province faced a $24.7 billion deficit.

Sunday’s deal amounts to a 40 per cent hike over seven years.

The agreement also increases rates for major cases and eliminates a 25 per cent reduction for fees paid to junior lawyers on those cases, while creating a dedicated Legal Aid Ontario fund to increase the fees available for defence experts.

The Attorney General’s office and Legal Aid have also agreed to sit down with the CLA by April 1, 2015 to discuss the future of the program.

At the end of the day, this is one of those where everybody can walk away proud and confident that they’ve made an important contribution to justice in Ontario,” Bentley said in an interview.

“We have committed to the criminal lawyers and to the other legal organizations that we will [provide] funds if there’s additional need for funds.”

Bentley said the agreement stemmed from very productive discussions” with various legal groups that were set up after the government’s initial investment announcement.

Criminal lawyers are expected to begin accepting legal aid certificates within the next day or two, and according to Bentley, the hard-fought battle hasn’t created any bad blood.

“Whatever was happening out there, the private discussions, very productive, very respectful,” Bentley said.

The CLA contributed greatly, I’m really looking forward to an ever-strengthened relationship.”

Addario credited his membership for taking such a long-standing stance on the issue to ensure much-needed changes took place.

“I’m very proud of my membership because they stood up for a principle and they said, at the risk of making a lot of people unhappy, at the risk of passing on cases that we want to do, we are going to make this point and we are going to expose the shortcomings of the system to the public,” he said.

More than 1,000 defence lawyers took part in the boycott, which began in June, as anger grew over the gap between what they are paid through legal aid and what provincial prosecutors earn.

A former Superior Court justice, the province’s Crown attorneys and The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted all joined the protest, warning that ongoing neglect would do irreversible damage to the justice system.

The boycott targeted only homicide cases and gangs and guns cases, but there were several threats to expand the protest.

The CLA ultimately agreed to give the government 60 days to negotiate an deal, threatening an expansion Monday if a deal wasn’t reached before then.

More than 100 people in Ontario who have needed a lawyer paid at legal aid rates have been unable to get one because of the job action.