More Women and Minorities Need to Be Appointed Judges

disinherited.com wholeheartedly endorses the recent article in the Vancouver Sun on October 22, 2012 co -written by Marjorie Griffin Cohen and retired former Justice Donna Martinson.

There simply needs to be more women and minorities appointed as Federal Court appointed Judges to the BC  Supreme Court.

The authors noted that in the past two years the federal appointments to the Supreme Court of British Columbia have been 10 in number, none of which have

been female and none of from an ethnic minority.

Shockingly, since 2009, of the 31 appointments, only five were women and only one was not Caucasian.

The authors note that these mostly white male appointments simply compound the already historical serious lack of female and minority representation on the Supreme Court bench.

For many years now our society has become increasingly multicultural with a diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities, experiences, and perspectives that must be matched by the equivalent diversity and skills on our bench.

The report was also critical of the very few appointed justices who have experience in family law, of which there is a great need to be filled by our courts.

Family law by its very nature grapples with societal problems that ultimately affect everyone.

With the high divorce rates, It is probably the one area of law that most people will come into contact with at some point during their lifetime, yet it is seemingly not taken seriously by the powers that be.

 

For example, BC is one of the few Provinces that does not have specialized family courts, another  seemingly egregious oversight.

Women and minorities have historically been vulnerable and marginalized, yet  still have suffered dramatic cutbacks to legal assistance such as legal aid in recent years.

It is simply fair and the hallmark of an advanced democracy that skilled women and minorities be chosen in appropriate more proportional representations as members of the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

– See more at: http://www.disinherited.com/blog/more-women-and-minorities-need-be-appointed-judges#sthash.aeVoXURC.dpuf

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