#YLL2023
Feb 4th
ACCESS TO JUSTICE
PRESENTED AND SPONSORED BY:
Access to Justice
How does the law impact current global events?
Access to Justice is a contest open to all attendees that is held annually alongside the YLL national conference. Each year, a prompt related to a current, prominent sociopolitical event is released. Participants have the opportunity to submit an interpretive entry of the prompt in any form of expression that they wish, whether it be an art piece, a research article, etc. We encourage entries to be investigative and to consider the impact of the law in relation to the prompt. Entries will then be judged by a panel of lawyers from Calgary Family Law Associates for a chance to win cash prizes.
This year, ATJ will be held synchronously across all branches of YLL.
The ATJ prompt for 2023 is:
"How does politics and government impact an individual’s ability to access justice?"
More details for how to participate in the contest are below!
Contest Details
How does politics and government impact an individual’s ability to access justice?
You can find the contest guidelines here, which are available as a PDF or Word document:
This document contains more details regarding the prompt, contest guidelines such as rules regarding certain formats of submissions (word count, page limit, etc.) and the submission form that must be completed with your submission.
To participate in the contest:
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Please familiarize yourself with contest guidelines before completing your submission.
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Once you are ready, please submit your entry to Calgary Family Law Associates, c/o Rani Wong, at #450, 340 12 Avenue SW., Calgary, AB T2R 1L5 or through email: rani.assistant@cfla.law (submission details available in contest guideline document).
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The Entry Submission Form must accompany all entries and students’ names should not appear on the work itself, only on the Entry Submission Form.
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All submissions must be received on or before 4:00 PM MDT/6:00 PM EST on April 30th, 2023.
For any questions or concerns, please contact us through email: admin@youthleadersinlaw.com
Access to Justice
2022
How can restorative justice improve the criminal justice system and access to justice and/or benefit Canadian society as a whole?
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!
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2nd Place ($150)
How can restorative justice improve the criminal justice system and access to justice and/or benefit Canadian society as a whole?
- Essay entry by M. Maramat (Calgary)
2nd Place ($150)
Regret and Retribution: Why Canada Must Reimplement Restorative Justice as Its Response to Crime
- Essay entry by S. Sivasathiyanathan (Ottawa)
PREVIOUS YEARS OF THE ACCESS TO JUSTICE CONTEST
ATJ 2021: Systemic Racism and Access to Justice
Canada’s access to civil justice has been ranked ninth out of 12 European and North American countries. We still have a long way to go in many aspects. Canada’s Department of Justice released a report in 2019 that shares the four biggest problems regarding access to justice: underreporting due to scared victims, trial delays, bad treatment within the system, and the lack of affordable and timely support/resources.
According to a 2019 study done by the Canada Race Relations Foundation, Indigenous Peoples and Black people are the most common targets of discrimination and unfair treatment in Canada, followed by Muslims and people from the Middle East.
This discrimination may mean that people have less access to some services, such as healthcare, jobs, and justice.
This year, Youth Leaders In Law wants your submissions for the following prompt: How does systemic racism impact an individual’s ability to access justice?
Access to Justice Competition 2021 Winners
First Place ($300 CAD): A. Cheung and E. Gossen of John Knox Secondary, British Columbia
Second Place ($150 CAD): R. Haji-Mahmoodzadeh of Centennial Secondary, British Columbia AND M. Bailey of Crescent Heights High School, Alberta
Third Place ($50 CAD): D. Mehta of University of Toronto Schools, Ontario AND G. Licardo of Old Scona Academic, Alberta
