Category Archives: Criminal Law

The myth of the neutrality of law

A few days ago, I read a comment on twitter referring to the Zimmerman case in the US (involving the alleged murder of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, by a Latino man who followed him during is “neighbourhood patrol” because he looked “suspicious”) affirming that the legal problem with this case was how the statute was written and not racism per se stating that law is neutral and cannot be racist (the tweet was posted before Zimmerman’s acquittal; I wonder if the person feels different now). I don’t know how the Florida Criminal Code is written and I don’t actually need to know how it is written to affirm that the law is not neutral nor is the justice system. And as Zimmerman’s acquittal shows, “Justice” is not blind.

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When Death is Racist

I have been traveling quite a bit lately, for fun and for work. Although I enjoyed it – being the travel addict that I am – it gave me little time to finish my post on the recent Supreme Court decision of Insite. I expect it will be done by the end of this week. In the meantime, I have an interesting reading suggestion for you. It’s a short article written by Sonya Nigam, executive director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa published online by Canadian Lawyer. The article follows the execution of Troy Davis, a black man, in Georgia. It’s a pretty gruesome case and shows the barbarity, in my opinion, of the American legal system and its use of the death penalty. What’s really interesting, however, is the level of racism of that system as outlined by the article. Also worth nothing is the little parallel at the end with Bill C-10. Not so light reading, but insightful nevertheless.

Here’s the article, enjoy:

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/3898/reflections-in-the-wake-of-troy-davis-execution.html

Why Bill C-10 is wrong

I was thinking about writing a blog on Bill C-10, the omnibus criminal law bill of the conservative subtly named Safe Streets and Communities Act (I don’t know why, but it doesn’t make me feel safer at all…). However, with my schedule it is sometimes hard to read all the material and draft a post. Thankfully, I came across what Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, said in the House of Commons, and I thought it summarized what I thought perfectly and in an eloquent manner. So here is the 2 minutes she got in the House (she was the last one to speak) as the debate was cut short by a radical and usually last resort parliamentary procedure on September 28, 2011.

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