Jennifer Kagan wipes away a single tear as she composes herself once again to discuss her daughter’s legacy.
Her four-year-old, Keira Kagan, was found dead next to her father’s body at the base of a cliff in a Milton, Ont., conservation area in February 2020. A provincial committee found it was “extremely consistent” with past cases of murder-suicide involving a father and a child.
Kagan, who had been in a bitter custody battle with Keira’s violent father for years, was determined to have the tragic result in changes to the way the judicial system deals with cases of intimate partner…
When Farrah Jinha’s 15-year marriage failed, she never imagined it would result in an eight-year legal battle, culminating in 2021 with an 18-day trial pitting her — alone — against her ex-husband’s professional legal team.
But faced with a $200,000 retainer fee that needed to be paid to keep her lawyer, Jinha says she was forced to take over her divorce proceedings in the BC Supreme Court.
“I was scared, for sure, but I was also very determined to get this done, because the sense of injustice was just too big,” said the 53-year-old, who now lives in Toronto. “I…
The University of Victoria is celebrating the construction of its National Center for Indigenous Law (NCIL).
The building is the first of its kind in Canada and has received funding from the provincial and federal governments, as well as the Law Foundation of BC
The NCIL is scheduled to open by fall 2024. Besides being a space to learn, the facility will help Indigenous laws re-emerge.
“Indigenous laws are lived and are living, but they have been suppressed and we have lost pieces of our laws,” said Patricia Barkaskas, NCIL strategic advisor to the dean.
“The space itself is a…
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear appeals on Tuesday, centered on a Yukon First Nation’s requirement that elected officials live on settlement land, and whether that requirement infringes the Charter rights of citizens living elsewhere.
The case could be precedent-setting for self-governing First Nations across the country, as the nation’s highest court considers the intersection of Canadian and Indigenous law when it comes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Indigenous self-government.
The court granted Vuntut Gwitchin citizen Cindy Dickson’s appeal application, as well as her First Nation’s conditional application for cross-appeal, last spring.
Dickson began her legal…