Access to Justice Mixed Media Competition

Congratulations to the winners of our Access to Justice Competition!

First Place:

Aiden Cheung and Emily Gossen of John Knox Secondary, British Columbia

Winners of $300 CAD

Second Place:

Rojina Haji-Mahmoodzadeh of Centennial Secondary, British Columbia

AND

Madison Bailey of Crescent Heights High School, Alberta

Winners of $150 CAD

Third Place:

Diya Mehta of University of Toronto Schools, Ontario

AND

Graciela Licardo of Old Scona Academic, Alberta

Winners of $50 CAD

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?

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR!

Topic for 2021