Constitutional challenge to inadequate legal aid; Whether a mother is entitled to legal aid for a custody hearing where the state applied to extend its custody of the child; whether the removal of a child from a parent violates her security of the person (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 7); whether the provision of legal aid is a right or a matter for discretion.
In all provinces where legal aid was not automatically provided in custody cases, judges began ordering it on a case by case basis. However, the decision did not alter the system-wide inadequacy of civil legal aid in Canada. This issue has been a priority issue for women’s organizations such as LEAF and NAWL. It is the subject of a major constitutional challenge launched by the Canadian Bar Association which attempts to move the Court well beyond the position adopted in G.(J.).
The decision was an important advance from earlier jurisprudence in which the Supreme Court of Canada had found that the Canadian Charter does not guarantee state funded counsel on arrest. (See Prosper). It represents an important recognition of positive obligations under section 7 of the Charter. However, linking the positive duties to state “interference” left it unclear whether this would be applied to poverty in a broader context (See Gosselin)