CANLII: The Law Vs. Justice (1)

CanLII: The Law vs. Justice (1)



Why CanLII: The Law vs. Justice??


CanLII stand for Canadian Legal Information Institute. It was by chance that I came across this website which with time, have shown to be a valuable source of information that has been useful in understanding the process with respect to the deportation order issued by the IRB on May 5th 2010 against myself. The limited economic means forced me to research more about not only Canada's immigration Laws; but also many other national and international legislations that have their incidence in the current process.



Looking for and using CanLII is very easy: if you Google: Law Cases in Canada you will be directed to the website, otherwise make click on the following which is one of the cases that is included as Exhibit P4 Tab 1 during the admissibility proceedings [Varela v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2001 FCT 483, [2001] 4 F.C. 42]. The search window from the Canadian Legal Information Institute would allow you to find specific words for instance if you type Mavis Baker or best Interest of the Child the website will take you to a great number of cases where the search topic has been discussed.



The topic of this article "CanLII: The Law Vs. Justice" has been picked because it allows to point out the idea that we cannot automatically reach to the conclusion that the law equals justice. These are two different concepts that not necessarily will always come together, therefore you could apply as it is written; but fail to serve justice. Another reason why this topic was picked is because it allows to describe the process of gathering evidence for the defense.



Preparing for the admissibility hearing was a challenge, mainly because due to lack of financial resources, we were forced to face the proceedings without the proper legal representation, I had to represent myself with the help of the pastor of the Lutheran Church whom we have known for 13 years. The lack of knowledge of the law was an obstacle which was overcome by common sense, truth, honesty, and over all faith. Finding CANLII was the beginning of a series of links to more information that gave sense to our arguments against the allegations presented during the admissibility proceedings by the Minister of Public Safety of Canada. It also allowed us to understand better how the Canadian Judicial system works and what are some of the common mistakes that the immigrant community had been making in past proceedings that are similar to the one we are presently discussing.

CANLII lead us to understand that the Canadian Judicial is based on a Common Law System which means that judges solve similar given situations based on precedents from past proceedings. We also learned about the principles of Natural Justice which are important principles for the administration of Justice. The not observance of the principles of natural justice definitely leads to injustices.

In order to avoid making this posting too long that it will stop right now and encourage that if you already know something about the case , or if you have any commentary please send your questions or commentary to jfigueroa@shaw.ca.