SINGLE MOMS FLEEING ABUSE FILE LAWSUIT OVER LEGAL AID
B.C. government, Legal Services Society in crosshairs of constitutional challenge
B.C.’s legal aid violates the Constitution by failing to provide adequate support for vulnerable women and their children fleeing violent relationships, two advocacy groups claim.
On behalf of the Single Mothers’ Alliance B.C. and two representative women, West Coast LEAF and the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre have launched litigation naming the provincial government and the Legal Services Society.
“Without access to a publicly funded lawyer, many women in poverty are not able to get the adequate representation they need to resolve their complex cases and must navigate the system in fear and at risk, often facing their abusers in court alone,” Debbie Henry, spokesperson for the moms, explained Wednesday.
“For a whole year we sat and listened to single moms and legal aid came up every time, the lack of, the struggle, dealing with violence and not having legal aid.”
The groups said they filed the constitutional challenge during the provincial election campaign to maximize discussion about the plight of thousands of women, a disproportionate number of whom are First Nations.
“We’ve been working and trying to build political will around access to justice and legal aid for well over a decade and gotten really nowhere,” said Kasari Govender, executive director of West Coast LEAF. “Finally, we are saying we need to take this to the court and have the court decide if this is a constitutional and human rights issue.”
Kate Feeney, lawyer at BCPIAC, agreed.
“When a person working full time for minimum wage does not even qualify for legal aid because their income is deemed ‘too high,’ we know something is deeply wrong,” she said.
The groups argue the existing legal aid scheme discriminates and violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantees of equality and right to life and security of the person by putting women and children at risk of violence and intense stress.
From the moment they came to office in 2001, the provincial Liberal administration clearcut legal aid, and it has never recovered.
The provincial bar and the Law Society of B.C. have called for greater funding, and many lawyers want the seven per cent PST on legal services dedicated for legal aid.
They say the government rakes in more than twice the roughly $80 million it annually spends in total on legal aid.
Even if you qualify for legal aid there are highly restrictive caps on the hours of service provided.
Mark Benton, chief executive officer of the LSS, said he had not seen the suit but acknowledged the concerns it raises. Legal aid will provide a lawyer for financially eligible clients only where there is a risk of violence, where there is persistent denial of access to a child or there is a risk a child will be permanently removed from the province.
The lawyer’s role is to obtain an interim protection order to stabilize the situation, but funding is not sufficient to pay lawyers to take a file to its conclusion.
Funding also is not sufficient to provide lawyers to assist clients, 70 per cent of whom are women, with other issues such as financial support, asset division, divorce or child custody and access.
In 2016, he said, the LSS spent $9 million to help only 3,800 families — perhaps the worst safety net in the country.
Before the Liberal cutbacks, Benton said, $18.1 million (equivalent to $23.4 million in 2016) was spent in 2001-02 to help 11,000 families; after the slashing, in 2003-04, only $6.4 million was spent (equivalent to $7.9 million in 2016) and only 4,400 families received aid.
One of the representative plaintiffs, a single mother of two living in Metro Vancouver identified as Nicole Bell, said she had been physically, sexually and emotionally abused.
Since 2013, she has intermittently had the help of a lawyer through legal aid and by liquidating her retirement savings. That allowed her to obtain short-term protection orders.
She later learned her ex was plotting to kill her and was making threats against her children and relatives.
Bell said her application for legal aid to obtain a non-expiring protection order for her and her children was initially denied.
She eventually hired a lawyer, at a reduced rate, by borrowing the money and forgoing recommended treatment for her special-needs child. Nearly three years after her first request and appeal were denied, Bell was granted legal aid for an upcoming hearing.