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OPINION
Who really needs access to justice?
DANIEL ADLER
Contributor
It is an inescapable fact that our lives as lawyers
will be guided in part by ethical considerations.
For some of us, studying law is an opportunity
to pursue social justice. For the rest of us, professional obligations require us to practice ethically
and act in the public interest.
And one issue that will affect all spheres
of practice – from the lowly legal aid clinic to
the high society Bay Street boardroom – is the
issue of access to justice. Whether it is doing pro
bono work for an impoverished client, or ensuring diversity in a large firm, improving access to
justice has become a fundamental concern of the
legal profession.
Yet, we learn about this issue as though the
only groups that lack adequate access to justice
are minorities, women, and the socioeconomically
disadvantaged. While improving access to justice
for these groups is undoubtedly important, there
is another group in Canadian society whose current situation is far more desperate. It is a group
so neglected that they are not even mentioned
in the legal ethics curriculum. It is an access to
justice problem so massive that it hasn’t even yet
been recognized as an access to justice problem.
I’m talking about animals.
How massive is this problem? In Canada, over 630
million animals are tortured and killed on factory farms – each year. Animals are forced into
tiny, dirty cages or pens, where they are kept in
the dark and unable to move. Chickens have their
beaks amputated, cows are branded and castrated,
and pigs have their tails cut off – all without anesthetic. Chickens routinely die from suffocation,
dehydration, or being crushed alive. Dairy cows
are forcibly impregnated, and their calves are separated from them soon after birth. Over a million
unwanted piglets are lifted by their hind legs and
slammed onto a concrete floor until they die.
The bigger problem, though, is that this represents only a portion of all the animals in Canada
that are ignored, underrepresented, and inadequately protected by our legal system.
Despite the scope of this problem, it strikes
many as minor compared to the ongoing struggle for equality and justice among humans. After
all, protecting animals just isn’t what the law is
about. The law is about regulating human affairs
and protecting the interests of humans.
While that might be the way the law is now,
it is certainly hasn’t been that way for very long.
There was a time – in fact, it was most of the time
– that the law was for white, Christian men. When
it came to women, bla 6