U of O professor to get prestigious law award
Elizabeth Sheehy to be honoured for pioneering advocacy
For nearly three decades, Elizabeth Sheehy has relentlessly focused on one broad subject: the interaction between women and the law.
The 56-year-old University of Ottawa professor designed and taught the first Canadian law school course on women and the legal profession in 1985. She has published voluminously, organized influential conferences and participated in important Supreme Court of Canada cases.
Her research helped shape laws on sexual assault and violence against women. Her advocacy forced the federal government to rethink how it deals with women who kill abusive males.
On Saturday in Saskatoon, the Canadian Bar Association will recognize Sheehy’s groundbreaking work, naming her the 2013 recipient of the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Law for outstanding contributions to the law or legal scholarship in Canada.
It’s a prestigious award. Past recipients include Roy McMurtry, Alan Borovoy, Charles Dubin and Jus- tice John Gomery. But Sheehy — described by the CBA as “a pioneer and an innovator in her field” — is a worthy choice.
“Through her scholarship, her advocacy and her teaching, Prof. Sheehy has shaped the development of criminal law and procedures in a number of key areas,” CBA president Robert Brun said in a statement. “She has helped Canadian judges and lawmakers address discrimination against women in the criminal law.”
In an interview Friday, Sheehy said she was “pretty humbled” by the award. But though there have been improvements in women’s treatment by the justice system, “there’s more than enough work to go around still, unfortunately,” she said.
“I can’t say male violence against women has abated. There remain many, many challenges and issues that need to be taken up by the coming generation of lawyers committed to women’s equality and social change.”
This fall, Sheehy will publish a hotly anticipated book that focuses on 11 court cases involving battered women accused of killing their intimate partners. To research it, she did an in-depth examination of the transcripts of 35 trials.
It’s not an academic book, but rather one aimed at general readers. “I wanted to write it so my mother could pick it up and read it,” she said.
Sheehy wanted to find out why so many women who kill abusive partners are still going to jail when, in her view, most shouldn’t. Sometimes it’s because their lawyers or the experts who tell their stories in court weren’t very effective.
But often it’s because Canada’s mandatory minimum sentence for murder frightens them, Sheehy said. “Most women are going to take a guilty plea to manslaughter rather than risk 25 years without parole. The stakes are so incredibly high.”
Eliminating the mandatory minimum sentence for women who kill abusive partners is a “critical reform,” said Sheehy, who has been teaching law at the U of O since 1984.
“It’s possible to have an exception in our Criminal Code that allows for mercy in specific cases, where someone has killed an abuser,” she said. “Even if it doesn’t amount to self-defence, why can’t we recognize flexibility in sentencing and the potential for mercy for such a woman?”
To ensure justice for women who’ve been raped, Sheehy said the justice system needs to offer some form of legal aid for victims of sexual violence.
“I think it should be an urgent priority that women who’ve been raped have their own lawyers in court,” she said. “The Crown cannot act as a woman’s advocate, and they really need an advocate. I think it would make a huge difference for women.”
One of the people who nominated Sheehy for the Hnatyshyn award was former Supreme Court of Canada justice Claire L’HeureuxDubé. Like Sheehy, she believes there’s more work to be done before women achieve full equality.
“Many people in the legal profession like to believe that we live in a post-feminist world,” L’HeureuxDubé said. “We do not. We still have far to go to reach equality for women in the legal profession, let alone in society.”
Sheehy’s “painstaking research and superior scholarship help us remember this and prods judges, lawyers and legislators towards achieving greater equality in society,” L’Heureux-Dubé said.