This may not mean much to anybody except Canadian legal Dopers, but it’s mundane and pointless; and may be of interest to all of our lawyers and law students, so I’m going to post it.
Back in September, I tried out for one of our law school’s competitive moot teams. For those who may not know, a law school moot is like a mock appeals court. I made the team, and today was our moot. Ah, was it great!
The case was R. v. Banks. Banks and company were squeegee kids who had been charged under Ontario’s Safe Streets Act (SSA). They had lost at trial, lost their appeal at the Court of Appeal, and had appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). The SCC refused leave to appeal, so we were basically making the arguments that would be made before the SCC, had the case got there. In a nutshell, the case centered on whether the SSA (specifically, section 3(2)(f)) contravened sections 7 (the right to life, liberty, and security of the person) and 15 (the equality right) of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, were the squeegee kids’ liberty rights or equality rights infringed by the SSA? And if so, could the statute be saved by the internal balancing provisions of s. 7, or the s. 1 Oakes test for s. 15?
I was one of the respondents, so I was arguing the Crown’s case: that the SSA did not deprive Banks and his friends of any Charter rights. If they somehow did, it was in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice (the s. 7 argument), and that the s. 15 argument was saved by the Charter s. 1 (the Oakes test). My job was to address the s. 7 argument.
Well, we and the appellants presented our respective cases to the Bench, which was made up of three Provincial Court judges. As is typical in an appeal, they fired questions at each of us. We were all well prepared, so the questions were not intimidating; rather, they gave us a chance to explain our positions more fully, and to engage the bench in a dialogue. I even got the Bench (and the gallery) to laugh at one point, although my aim was not comedy. It was instead to persuade, but that’s sometimes easier when you can talk easily between yourselves, and a little humour can help. At any rate, I spoke at the lectern for 25 minutes–the most we were allowed–and reluctantly concluded. I was making my points and having fun at the same time!
And in the end, we lost. The appeal was granted. The judges admitted that it was a difficult decision, and indeed, they took much longer than they would normally take to arrive at a decision. The decision, as I understand it was “by a nose,” to use a horse racing analogy. But I take comfort from our supervising professor, who told us that he was very pleased; that each of us was extremely well-prepared, and did ourselves and our school proud. In fact, one of the school’s professors, who was in the gallery, came up to me later and told me that my arguments on s. 7 were exactly right, and were basically unrebuttable. This gentleman is very well-regarded at our school and in the local legal community, so a compliment such as that is a compliment indeed. And that’s a good feeling.
So even though we lost, I feel good. We did well. Tomorrow, I’m just another law student, attending lectures and reading cases, but today … today I feel like a lawyer!
