Self-represented litigants have mountains to climb.

• Date: 01 September 2016
• Author: Le Blanc, Owen

Access to Justice

The right to a fair trial is a principle of fundamental justice in Canada. If the unrepresented litigant is a lay person, this right to a fair trial might be infringed based on procedural issues alone. Judges in Canada have been attuned to this possibility and provided some common law solutions to assist self-represented litigants. In A(JM) v Winnipeg Child & Family Services, Scott C.J.M. acknowledged that courts should offer some assistance to unrepresented litigants. Furthermore, it was also acknowledged in Dunsmuir v New Brunswick that the exact amount of assistance that will be required will vary from case to case, largely based on what is required for a litigant to understand proceedings. Judges in these circumstances must be careful, however, because it is possible that they may compromise judicial neutrality if they are viewed assisting a litigant too much. This is the Catch 22 with self-represented litigants. It has placed judges in the impossible...