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Into The "Vortex Of Legal Precision": Access To Justice, Complexity, And The Canadian Tax System, Colin Jackson

PhD Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of access to justice issues in the Canadian tax system. Drawing on the work of Roderick Macdonald, it argues for a broad conception of access to justice based on the empowerment of individuals in all of the sites, processes, institutions where law is made, administered, and applied. It argues that tax law shows the usefulness of this comprehensive approach to access to justice. Using the comprehensive approach to access to justice, the thesis goes on to argue that legal complexity should be seen as an important access to justice issue in tax law. It lays …

How Ontarians Experience The Law: An Examination On Incidence Rate, Seriousness And Response To Legal Problems, Matthew Dylag

LLM Theses

Access to civil justice is a conceptual framework that, at its most basic, claims all people are entitled to have their legal disputes resolved fairly. However, it is currently understood that these ideals are not reflected in the day-to-day realities of ordinary people. Though scholarship has examined ways in which to better allow for meaningful access to civil justice, there is still a need for further quantitative research especially from the Canadian perspective. This paper provides an empirical foundation to this discussion by examining the 2014 Cost of Justice project survey. Specifically, it examines the incidence rate of civil legal …

Having A Say: Democracy, Access To Justice And Self-Represented Litigants, Jennifer Ann Leitch

PhD Dissertations

Access to Justice is one of the most contested issues on the law-and-society agenda. There is a long-standing exchange over its meaning, objectives, and success. Beneath that engagement, there is a deeper and more basic debate about the overall ambitions for access to justice: is the goal to improve peoples access to the legal process and generate more positive outcomes (the practical thesis), or to enhance peoples participation and ultimately their ability to affect justice as an end in itself (the democratic thesis)? This thesis adopts the latter approach.

The plight of self-represented litigants (SRLs) offers a revealing glimpse into …

Finding A Sense Of Self In The World: A Process For Overcoming Personal And Collective Alienation After Institutional Abuse, Seetal Kaur Sunga

LLM Theses

The author examines three aspects of dispute resolution involving cases of physical and sexual abuse in institutions and other environments. She focuses on judicial and alternative processes that deal with identity formation, empowerment and monetary compensation. She argues that sexual abuse and physical abuse create specific harms to the identity and power of abused persons. These harms should be addressed through a process that can allow for identity-formation and re-configuration of the power relationship between the parties. The author concludes that judicial processes recognize identity formation that occurs outside the legal arena, and are capable of recognizing the power of …