Inequalities and the Social Context
| Author | Mary Jane Mossman |
| Pages | 303-311 |
Sixteen
Inequalities
and the
Social Context
MARY JANE MOSSMAN
Dans
ses
decisions,
L'Heureux-Dube s'est
montree
sensibilisee
et
sensible
au
contexte
social dans
lequel
se
trouvent
bien
ancrees
les
inegalites
..-1
In
thinking about
my
comments
for
this workshop,
I was
reminded
of
this
assessment
of
Justice L'Heureux-Dube, written
by our
late colleague Professor
Marlene
Cano
in
1991.
Marlene's assessment appeared only
a few
years
after
Justice
L'Heureux-Dube
was
appointed
to the
Supreme Court
of
Canada,
and
just
a few
years
before
Marlene's untimely death.
It
focused
on the
contribu-
tions
of
Justice L'Heureux-Dube
to
family
law
jurisprudence
in
Quebec, when
Justice
L'Heureux-Dube
was a
member
of the
Quebec Court
of
Appeal
and at
a
time when courts
in
Quebec were engaged
in
interpreting revisions
to the
Civil
Code.
In
this context, Marlene identified Justice L'Heureux-Dube's abid-
ing
concern
for
equality
and the
need
to
understand legal principles
in a
social
context, goals
to
which Marlene
was
similarly committed
as a
legal
scholar
and law
teacher.2
Thus,
in
reflecting
on
Justice
L'Heureux-Dube's contributions
to
equali-
ty in
relation
to
legal
aid and
family
law,
I
want
first to
examine
how her
legal
approach
was
"anchored
in a
social context
of
inequality"
in the
Supreme
Court
of
Canada's decision
in New
Brunswick
v.
G.(/./
In
this case,
the
Court
decided
that
state-funded
counsel
was
required when
an
indigent mother
faced
the
possibility
that
her
children would
be
apprehended
by the
state.
In
addition
to
examining
the
reasoning
in G., my
comments
sketch some
of the
current
issues
in
Canada concerning unrepresented litigants, particularly
in
family
law
303
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