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The Mark, Canada
May 6 2011
Will Justice Be Served?
by The Mark Newsroom
First Posted: May 06 2011 14:05 PM
Updated: about 2 hours ago
New crimes, bigger prisons, and Supreme Court appointments will be a
big part of the Tory legacy.
Stephen Harper's majority allows him to pass a crime bill that is the
basis for spending as much as $5 billion on new prisons. Brian Lilley
of the Sun chain questions the wisdom behind the bill's provision that
makes it illegal to link to any website with hate speech on it. `Will
websites promoting Israeli Apartheid Week, now a staple on university
campuses across Canada, land someone in jail?' asks Lilley. `What
about web postings on the Armenian genocide which the Armenians blame
the Turks for but which the Turks dispute?' Sentences for such
offences can garner up to two years in jail, which Lilley calls `a
ridiculous proposal that has no place in a country that claims to
cherish freedom of expression.'
A commentator on the opposite side of the political spectrum, Ian
Mulgrew, comes to a similar conclusion about the bill in the Vancouver
Sun. Pointing to public opinion polls in favour of the tough-on-crime
legislation, Mulgrew wonders why `no matter the evidence of a decade
of declining crime rates, the nation feels less safe and the Tories
say that requires broad changes and a legal cultural shakeup.' Justice
was the one of very few areas in which the Tories vastly differed from
their rivals, says Mulgrew, an aberration of questionable spending in
an otherwise restrained platform. It's the same mentality behind
justice policies in Arizona, Mulgrew points out, where the population
in prison grew tenfold over the past 30 years, while the total
population only doubled.
The Tories could alter Canada's justice system permanently through the
Supreme Court. The Ottawa Citizen's Dan Gardner examines what Harper
might do with the four new judges he'll appoint to the country's
highest bench. `Quite conceivably, Stephen Harper will determine the
character of the judiciary for a generation,' writes Gardner. Harper's
two previous selections, Marshall Rothstein and Thomas Cromwell, are
universally considered excellent choices. But with an emboldened
majority, and worrying comments from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney
condemning the courts for not following the Conservatives' political
agenda, Gardner says jurists are rightly concerned over whether `the
reasonable moderate or the partisan zealot' will be the one making
those appointments.
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/5082-will-justice-be-served
From: A. Papazian
May 6 2011
Will Justice Be Served?
by The Mark Newsroom
First Posted: May 06 2011 14:05 PM
Updated: about 2 hours ago
New crimes, bigger prisons, and Supreme Court appointments will be a
big part of the Tory legacy.
Stephen Harper's majority allows him to pass a crime bill that is the
basis for spending as much as $5 billion on new prisons. Brian Lilley
of the Sun chain questions the wisdom behind the bill's provision that
makes it illegal to link to any website with hate speech on it. `Will
websites promoting Israeli Apartheid Week, now a staple on university
campuses across Canada, land someone in jail?' asks Lilley. `What
about web postings on the Armenian genocide which the Armenians blame
the Turks for but which the Turks dispute?' Sentences for such
offences can garner up to two years in jail, which Lilley calls `a
ridiculous proposal that has no place in a country that claims to
cherish freedom of expression.'
A commentator on the opposite side of the political spectrum, Ian
Mulgrew, comes to a similar conclusion about the bill in the Vancouver
Sun. Pointing to public opinion polls in favour of the tough-on-crime
legislation, Mulgrew wonders why `no matter the evidence of a decade
of declining crime rates, the nation feels less safe and the Tories
say that requires broad changes and a legal cultural shakeup.' Justice
was the one of very few areas in which the Tories vastly differed from
their rivals, says Mulgrew, an aberration of questionable spending in
an otherwise restrained platform. It's the same mentality behind
justice policies in Arizona, Mulgrew points out, where the population
in prison grew tenfold over the past 30 years, while the total
population only doubled.
The Tories could alter Canada's justice system permanently through the
Supreme Court. The Ottawa Citizen's Dan Gardner examines what Harper
might do with the four new judges he'll appoint to the country's
highest bench. `Quite conceivably, Stephen Harper will determine the
character of the judiciary for a generation,' writes Gardner. Harper's
two previous selections, Marshall Rothstein and Thomas Cromwell, are
universally considered excellent choices. But with an emboldened
majority, and worrying comments from Immigration Minister Jason Kenney
condemning the courts for not following the Conservatives' political
agenda, Gardner says jurists are rightly concerned over whether `the
reasonable moderate or the partisan zealot' will be the one making
those appointments.
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/5082-will-justice-be-served
From: A. Papazian