How many of you can afford to pay a lawyer at least 250 Canadian taxpayer dollars per hour like the MMF to sue private citizens?

Legal System 'Suicidal': Gomery
Lawyers' Services Too Costly For Many, Judge Warns

By Janice Tibbetts
National Post
August 9, 2007
Page A1

OTTAWA - Canada's justice system is on a dangerous path that can only be reversed if lawyers cut their fees and governments put more money into legal aid, says Justice John Gomery, the judge who led the 2004-2005 inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal.

Speaking on the eve of his retirement, Judge Gomery said the escalating cost of legal services is an "alarming trend" that is putting the justice system out of reach for everyone but the wealthy.
"The problem is a problem of costs," the judge said in a telephone interview from his farm in Havelock,Que. "I think the cost of engaging a lawyer has to be examined."

Judge Gomery stressed that "it is not just the poor; it's the great middle class" who are representing themselves in court because they cannot afford legal fees.

"I don't think the legal profession is giving the proper attention to the problem and its suicidal, the direction that we're going now."

After 25 years on the Quebec Superior Court, Judge Gomery steps down today at the mandatory age of 75.

His parting assessment of the administration of justice is the latest shot at a system that has been widely criticized for being inaccessible and producing a surge in litigants showing up in court without lawyers.

The most recent national figures on lawyers' fees, contained in a two-year-old survey by Canadian Lawyer magazine, peg the average hourly rate for a lawyer with 10 years experience at $170 to $260 depending on the region.

The average price of a contested divorce in 2005 was $8,505 while it cost an average of $20,830 to go to court for two days in a civil trial.

The magazine did not publish a survey in 2006 and 2007 because not enough lawyers responded to make the results meaningful.

Judge Gomery, acknowledging he likes to "say simple things simply," spelled out the access-to-justice problem more plainly than other judges who have weighed in on the matter.

For instance, the Supreme Court of Canada's Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin, has said lawyers have a "crucial role to play" to make the justice system more accessible but she stopped short of calling on them to lower their fees.

"I think it's for the bar to answer that question," she said during a news conference last August, following a speech in which she asserted there was an "epidemic" of unrepresented litigants trying rto navigate their way through the system.

"I would be presumptuous of me to say law firms should do this or that or the other thing, but I raised it as a question for the bar to ask themselves."

The President of the Canadian Bar Association, J. Parker MacCarthy, said lawyers are only a part of a problem that includes governments charging taxes on legal services, along with court delays that are costing extra money, and cumbersome court rules that consume too much time.

"Legal fees should not be looked upon as a stand-alone barrier to access to justice," said Mr. MacCarthy, who added that lawyers, as a goup, donate a generous portion of their time giving free legal help to those in need.

Judge Gomery also addressed the problem of dwindling legal aid, but he did nto elaborate other than to say the state must contribute more to the battered program for people who cannot afford the cost of legal services themselves.

Several provinces have unsuccessfully lobbied Ottawa to increase federal contributions to legal aid, a program that is administered and funded mainly at the provincial level. The Canadian Bar Association has been locked in a legal challenge against the federal government, claiming that legal aid is a constitutional right.

Judge Gomery leaves the bench following a legal career that has spanned almost five decades.

He said the federal sponsorship inquiry, which fromer Prime Minister Paul Martin called in 2004 to get to the bottom of how the Liberals misspent millions on a program designed to raise the federal profile in post-referendum Quebec, was the highlight of his career.

But he acknwoledged he made mistakes - notably saying in newspaper interviews that one witness was a "charming scamp." He also said the actions of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien were "small-town cheap," a reference to the handing out of monogrammed golf balls.

"The kinds of things I said in some ill-advised interviews, some things I regret and had to apologize for, "he said. "But, looking at my career in retrospect, I am not going to dwell on the things I could have done better. I made lots of mistakes, but I'm a human being."

CanWest News Service