Ultra Vires Vol 17 Issue 4: 2016 January

JANUARY 27, 2015 | ULTRAVIRES.CA

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF LAW

BETTER KNOW A COURT: THE CONSENT AND CAPACITY BOARD PAGE 4

RIGHTS REVIEW: INTERVIEW WITH MOHAMED FAHMY PAGE 8

HOW TO DO A LAW SCHOOL STAYCATION FOR READING WEEK PAGE 14

Dean Iacobucci Discloses Data in Response to Student Requests MATTHEW HOWE (3L) Dean Iacobucci spent much of the November 25, 2015 Faculty Council meeting responding to student requests for household income information arising from the prior meeting. The Students’ Law Society (SLS) had requested that the Faculty release the parental income data for the 50% of students who apply for financial aid to provide a partial picture of socioeconomic diversity at the law school. It also requested that the Faculty begin collecting the same data for the rest of the class.

The SLS argued that only actual data, not the postal code data the Faculty currently uses as a proxy, could accurately measure family income

levels at the law school.

This request was echoed by an independent group of students (which included this author) who sent an open letter to Dean Iacobucci.

Iacobucci began by defending the Faculty’s current approach to tracking and sharing demographic information on its students, stating that he’s “never seen a Faculty as transparent as we have been.” He also questioned the motives of those requesting more data, suggesting that people interested in more socioeconomic data are mostly those absolutely opposed to tuition increases, and that these people often “don’t engage with the em-

pirical evidence.” As a result, he was “hesitant to extend the conversation much further.”

That said, he provided the parental-income data for students who applied for financial aid between 2010 and 2015.

The data show there has been no significant change in the number of students from low-income households attending the law school in the past five years. However, it also shows that there have consistently been few students from lower income brackets in absolute terms through that period. (The median household income in Canada was $76,000 on the 2011 Census.)

One trend is that, as tuition increases, more students from wealthier families are applying for and receiving financial aid. From the data, Iacobucci concluded that persistently increasing tuition has not affected the socioeconomic diversity of the class, noting that “from a diversity perspective, what’s really crucial is that the numbers [of lowincome students] are steady.” He also argued that the data confirmed that the postal-code proxy data, which also showed no changes over the same time period, is reliable.

Iacobucci did not release family income data for

continued on p. 2

EDITORIAL/NEWS

2 | JANUARY 27, 2016

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Everyone Calm Down BRETT HUGHES (3L) Welcome back to school, and to the third-last issue of Ultra Vires for the year! There remain only two and a half weeks until Reading Week, and only two months until winter classes are over. My advice to everyone is: try to be intentional about how you spend the rest of the school year. It goes by quickly and it is easy to get caught up in thinking that each and every one of the barrage of events and opportunities that present themselves is somehow essential to your academic and professional success. (Seriously: over 100 first-years attempted to sign up for the first-year trial advocacy program in the first two minutes.)

As a former Ultra Vires editor put it in a different context, law school is a choose your own adventure novel. There is no single right way to do law school; there aren’t even three or four or five right ways to do law school. It is clichéd but true: there are as many paths to success as there are students at this school. Your path can be built on extracurriculars, prior work experience, academic experience, grades, clinic work, journals, advocacy, re-

search, and any mixture of the above. Yes, you need to “Do Things,” as David Pardy tells us on page 10, but you don’t need to do the same things as everyone else. In fact, you probably shouldn’t.

First-year students seem to be treating the firstyear Bay Street recruitment process with the same intensity that second-years treat the annual fall recruit. While it is a useful opportunity to update one’s resume and practice writing cover letters, it bears repeating that this process is not the be all and end all of first-year summer jobs. First and foremost, numerically, only 13 non-JD-MBA students—i.e. actual first-years—obtained jobs through this process last year. That means approximately 195 of you won’t get first-year Bay Street jobs. And that’s a good thing.

For many students, first-year summer is the last “real” summer that you have, so why rush into those 12 to 14-hour work days on Bay Street?

Work as a research assistant for a professor, a caseworker at a legal clinic, an intern for a legal organisation, a summer student for the government, or

something else. There are plenty of opportunities out there, and they will keep popping up for a long time, even through the start of summer. You’ll have more reasonable work hours and the chance to spend time with friends, explore the city, read, catch up on TV shows and movies, see shows, and just enjoy summer. Plus, when you are applying for jobs in second year, or the articling recruit, you will have so much more perspective about what interests you and doesn’t interest you and (1) be able to make more informed decisions about where you work, and (2) do better in your applications and interviews because it will be apparent if you know what you want to do and why.

What’s been happening on campus lately? Well we have not one, but two whole editions of everyone’s favourite Ultra Vires feature: Faculty Affairs. At the November Faculty Council meeting, Dean Iacobucci, to his credit, devoted a second consecutive meeting to the issue of financial aid and tuition at the law school. We gained a partial picture of the socioeconomic status of students at

the law school with the release of parental income data from students who apply for financial aid. We also learned a little about the central University’s budget plans for the coming years (more international students!). My main comment would be that this should just be the start of the conversation rather than the end (Dean Iacobucci indicated that he viewed the partial release of parental income data as bringing this conversation to a close.)

At the January Faculty Council Meeting, we learned about the school’s preliminary thinking about how to do experiential learning the “U of T way.” Apparently this involves using the case method.

Finally, I am very excited about our collaboration with the International Human Rights Program’s Rights Review. We look forward to working with IHRP to share important, timely content on international human rights issues and the work of the IHRP in print and online going forward.

continued from cover the years between 2003 (when it was last released) and 2010.

The Dean stressed that none of this should be interpreted as “a recipe for complacency”, and that “we need to continue to grow financial aid as pressures on tuition continue.”

He also suggested that he was uncomfortable sharing socioeconomic data when other law schools do not. He said that he will raise the issue of data collection and disclosure at the next meeting of the Canadian Council of Law Deans. Professor Reaume commented that U of T Law has been a “leader on jacking up tuition” so it needs to take leadership on tracking this data.

Dean Iacobucci ended by again questioning the usefulness of the conversation, given his understanding of the requesters’ motives and making clear that he was not committing to “have this conversation” (i.e. release parental income data) every year. He did not comment on the second part of the SLS data request—that the Faculty begin collecting parental income data on the 50% of students at the Faculty who do not apply for financial aid.

For the remainder of the meeting, Faculty Council heard from Scott Mabury, VP Operations for U of T, and Sally Garner, Executive Director of U of T’s Planning and Budget Office. Mabury and

Garner spoke at length about the University’s budget and fiscal outlook. They told the familiar U of T story about how government postsecondary funding has remained stagnant for years as costs have increased. This has created a structural deficit for the University as a whole, and many departments and faculties in particular (including Law). Scott Mabury suggested that reduced public funding was a good thing because he said that the government wants to control things that it funds.

U of T plans to increase revenue in the coming years by increasing overall enrolment, and international enrolment in particular. (International students pay higher tuition fees.)

Echoing Iacobucci’s addresses in past meetings, Mabury and Garner stated that the only way to solve the Faculty’s budget deficit is to increase revenues and become more productive.

Ultra Vires is an editorially independent publication. We are open to contributions which reflect diverse points of view, and our contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Faculty of Law, the Students’ Law Society, or the editorial board.

Editor-in-chief News Editor Features Editors Opinion Editors Diversions Editor 1L Editors Photo & Design Editors Foreign Correspondent Special Features Editor Layout Editor Web Editor Business Manager

Brett Hughes Matt Howe & Alex Redinger Lisana Nithiananthan & Rona Ghanbari Alex Carmona & Geetha Philipupillai Clara Rozee & Amir Eftekarpour Nick Papageorge, Maud Rozee, and Justin Khorana-Medeiros Alex Wong, Roxana Parsa, and Holly Sherlock Harrison Cruikshank Simon Cameron Becca Howes Andrew Ngo Trevor Snider

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The next issue of Ultra Vires will be published on Wednesday, February 24 and submissions are due by Wednesday, February 17.

NEWS

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JANUARY 27, 2016 | 3

Faculty Affairs – Fundraising, Licensing, and Experiential Education MAUD ROZEE (1L) AND MATT HOWE (3L) Faculty Council’s January 20 meeting dealt with updates on fundraising, lawyer licensing, and experiential education at the law school.

Our new building’s namesake, Hal Jackman, past donor of $10 million to the Faculty, has gifted another $1 million. Part will be used to establish the JR Kimber Chair in Investor Protection and Corporate Governance—Professor Anita Anand will be its first holder. The Faculty will also use the gift to hire a new experiential learning coordinator.

The balance will establish a fellowship for international LLM students to study at U of T and a bursary fund for JD students—the bursary fund is comprised of an initial $450,000 endowment, with the income paid out each year (which is doubled through U of T matching funds). Both will be named after Newton Rowell, a prominent early-20th century lawyer and politician—and Jackman’s grandfather.

In addition to Jackman’s gift, Dean Iacobucci introduced the “Deans’ Fund” for financial aid, made up of contributions from Iacobucci himself as well as all living former Deans of the Faculty. The fund currently sits as $300,000, half of which was given by Dean Iacobucci’s father, Justice Frank Iacobucci.

After the fundraising discussion, Dean Ia-

cobucci raised concerns about a recent Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) proposal to establish national standards for accrediting law schools. Under the proposal, graduates from unapproved law schools would undergo the same complicated accreditation process as lawyers from outside Canada. Iacobucci called the approval process “potentially worrying,” noting it could impose requirements on law school that emphasize a vocational approach to teaching law over an academic one. However, Iacobucci sits on the FLSC’s approval committee and was reassured that the FLSC is live to these concerns.

A separate branch of the FLSC has proposed that there should be a National Licensing Program for lawyers, so that mobility agreements allowing accreditations to be accepted in any province will be matched by some sort of national standard. The proposed national licensing program would be heavily skills and rules-focussed, which Iacobucci called “exactly the wrong direction to head in.” In Iacobucci’s opinion, law schools should focus on concepts and ways of thinking instead of rules which could be changed overnight.

Iacobucci also questioned who would foot the bill for this new Program. SLS President

Andrew Wang added that the Law Students Society of Ontario sent a letter to the FLSC raising concerns about students bearing the cost but received only a vague response. The FLSC did say they would have a student consultation period if the proposal was accepted by the provincial law societies.

Faculty Council then heard from Professor Brenda Cossman who, along with Assistant Dean Sara Faherty, is preparing a report on experiential education at law school. Cossman noted that in the past, the Faculty concentrated on providing experiential education through clinics and externships. Their focus now is on the value of bringing it into the classroom. The push for more experiential opportunities, Cossman explained, comes partially from the thought that today’s students may prefer “learning by doing” or “learning by reflecting on doing” over a traditional lecture, and also criticism that law schools do not adequately prepare students for practice.

Cossman took a fairly broad view of the concept of experiential education, describing it as nearly anything which requires students to engage in problem solving in the classroom.

Using this definition, Cossman described putting a fact pattern to students as a positive example. Simulated oral arguments, drafting

exercises, and field trips were also floated as potential experiential opportunities.

Iacobucci noted that under Cossman’s definition, the traditional “case method”—which “flips the classroom” and relies on student participation—is already a successful example of experiential education.

Professor Denise Reaume cautioned against “slapping a label on current practices” to satisfy calls from the Bar for a more “skillsbased” education. Instead, she stressed the need to think carefully about the potential value of experiential education, and in what ways it can be meaningfully incorporated into the Faculty’s curriculum. Both Iacobucci and Cossman agreed that any forays into experiential education should fit clearly within the Faculty’s current academic mission, and that calls for the Faculty to move towards a vocational model should be resisted. The ultimate focus, according to Cossman, should be on improving the educational experience of students at the law school.

For now, Cossman and Faherty are continuing discussions with stakeholders and thinking about ways in which experiential education might provide value to students in the classroom.

Law School Caught in Tangled Web of Obligations Following Promise Auction NICK PAPAGEORGE (1L) PHOTOS BY HOLLY SHERLOCK (2L) This past month, U of T Law held its fourth annual Promise Auction to raise funds for the Native Women's Resource Centre of Toronto and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada.

The former “provides a meeting place in Toronto for Aboriginal women to share resources, support one another, and practice their traditional ways, providing a welcoming atmosphere for all Aboriginal women and their children in the Greater Toronto Area.”

The latter uses a “reconciliation framework that respectfully engages First Nation and non-Aboriginal peoples, to provide high quality resources to support First Nations communities to empower children, youth and families.”

Nevermind that the first post on the official event page was made to inform us that the organizers did not have most of us as Facebook “friends” – from 1L to 2L to 3Ls. 4Ls were either covered or needn’t have applied. Nevermind that the next two posts informed us that some unsavory character was trying to sabotage the whole enterprise. (As an aside, if you

happen to be that pernicious poster, please contact me for an anonymous, Penn/Chapostyle interview.) This auction promised to be big time stuff—and big time stuff it seemed to be.

may also have been some not-so-subtle goading of the crowd into bidding higher. Indeed, this is the first time I’ve heard items at auction going thrice, four times, and then five, and one last going thrice—for real this time.

We were told to come for the pizza and stay for the auction, for it would be worth it. Dinner with our illustrious Dean and “the dopest quilt you’ve ever seen” were ours for the taking. The auctioneers played their parts admirably, putting forth their best comedic and energetic efforts to inspirit the crowd. There

The question of whether the bids had to be increased by ten was answered in the affirmative. The “Ahh f ***” response that declaration garnered was appropriate, given that the auctioneers were clearly lying to get bids in, admitting as much a few minutes later. As the live auction kicked into gear, the crowd ap-

peared to swell from some sixty circumspect folks to at least a hundred observers. Regrettably, few of these individuals partook in the bidding to get high on fermented fruit, ultimately a $320 privilege.

But, we were told, if we thought this atomized live bidding was exciting, just wait until we get to the silent part! Exciting this also was—there was interest in just about every item stuck to the walls in Birge Carnegie. Yet, as this portion came to its 5pm close, organizers could be heard lamenting how the previous year had engaged in more bidding wars while this crop of 1Ls had proved somewhat of a disappointment in that respect.

Such disappointment notwithstanding, the students’ efforts raised over $4,000, besting last year’s total.

FEATURES

4 | JANUARY 27, 2016

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Better Know a Court: High Stakes in Small Rooms – The Consent and Capacity Board AMBER NEUMANN (3L) AND MATT HOWE (3L) Every day across Ontario, a little-known tribunal gathers in nondescript hospital meeting rooms to adjudicate high stakes personal issues involving physical and mental health care, involuntary psychiatric detention, and end-of-life disputes.

The Consent and Capacity Board (CCB, or “the Board”) hears disputes arising from the exercise of powers granted to physicians, capacity assessors, and substitute decision-makers under the Health Care Consent Act (HCCA), the Mental Health Act, the Substitute Decisions Act, the Personal Health Information Protection Act, and the Mandatory Blood Testing Act. The most frequently adjudicated issues before the CCB are physicians’ decisions to involuntarily detain individuals in psychiatric hospitals under the Mental Health Act, and decisions that individuals are incapable of consenting to psychiatric treatment under the Health Care Consent Act. Other common areas for consideration include assessments of a person’s capacity to manage property, make decisions related to their personal care, or consent to health treatment.

The CCB in Practice CCB hearings must begin within seven days of an application being received by the Board.

(This means, in effect, that a person may be involuntarily detained for up to seven days with no recourse to challenge the detention.)

The parties in attendance will be, at minimum, the panel members, an attending physician or Capacity Assessor, the person whose capacity is in question, and his or her counsel.

The CCB panel will consist of a lawyer, a psychiatrist, and a lay person from the community. Hearings operate in accordance with the Statutory Powers and Procedures Act and the Board’s own Rules of Practice. Like a lot of

administrative tribunals, the hearings tend to be informal.

Hearings focus very specifically on the legal test for capacity, as it applies to the issue at hand. Though it varies somewhat depending on the relevant legislation, the standard is typically whether the person can “understand and appreciate” their situation. The onus is on the party raising the issue to establish that the person whose capacity is in question is unable to understand the pertinent information related to the decision, or is unable to appreciate the consequences of either making a decision or failing to do so. In presenting evidence, it is important to know the legal test and the language of the legislation, and to use both carefully and specifically.

Failure on the part of physicians or Capacity Assessors to identify the proper test and to substantiate it with evidence can lead to unfortunate outcomes. Consider the following example. Betty is an elderly woman living alone and suffering from worsening dementia.

She has not paid her rent for several months, and she does not understand that her income is no longer enough to cover her expenses, let alone her rental arrears. When confronted by her landlord, she maintains against all evidence that there is no problem. Betty is assessed by a Capacity Assessor (a designation given to health care professionals who have undergone some training in capacity issues) to be incapable of managing her property, and is appointed a substitute-decision maker (SDM) who can get her finances in order and help her move into an affordable apartment.

Unfortunately, the Capacity Assessor, in this case an overworked social worker with no legal training, did a sloppy job in her assessment of Betty. Instead of applying the facts to the proper legal test (and starting from a presumption of capacity), she simply stated her conclusion that Betty was incapable and need-

ed help. This might not be objectionable from a social work perspective, but it means that the Board will likely remove Betty’s SDM because of a lack of evidence regarding her legal incapacity. Without her SDM, Betty remains in the apartment she cannot afford until she is forcibly removed by the Sheriff and rendered homeless.

(The above situation is loosely based on our experiences as summer students with the Public Guardian and Trustee, a government agency which serves as an SDM ‘of last resort’ for individuals like Betty, and is not altogether uncommon.)

Clearly, it can be just as important that a person in need of support be accurately assessed as lacking in decision-making capacity as it is to ensure that a person’s liberty is not compromised based on a weak assessment of their capacity.

Recent Appeals Point to an Expanding Role for the CCB Two recent cases heard by the CCB before making their way up the chain for review by courts illustrate the Board’s evolving role.

In Cuthbertson v. Rasouli [2013 SCC 53], the Supreme Court ruled that a decision to remove life support falls under the jurisdiction of the CCB. Mr. Rasouli’s attending physicians sought to remove him from life support.

His wife, as his substitute decision-maker, refused. It was the physician’s position that the continuation of life support did not fall within the statutory definition of treatment. Mr. Rasouli’s wife argued that withdrawal of life support under the circumstances constituted treatment under the HCCA, thereby falling within her purview as substitute decisionmaker, and that any disagreement the physicians had with her decision should be resolved by the CCB. The Court agreed, further ex-

panding the role for the CCB in a growing and contentious area of health law.

P.S. v. Ontario [2014 ONCA 900] dealt with the Board’s role and powers regarding long-term involuntary civil psychiatric detention. Prior to the P.S. decision, the Board was limited in its ability to influence the conditions of detention. The Ontario Court of Appeal found that the MHA provisions which deal with indefinite detention resulted in a breach of P.S.’s Section 7 Charter rights, because the legislation failed to give the CCB the powers required to “ensure that the conditions of a person’s long-term detention are tailored to reflect the person’s actual level of risk, moving towards their ultimate integration.” As such, the provisions were rendered of no force and effect. The anticipated outcome of the decision is that the Board will have greater input when it comes to patients’ rights to meaningful avenues for recovery, in order to work towards release from detention and reintegration into the community.

Where to Learn More With growing awareness of mental health advocacy, and a rapidly aging population, the CCB is an important part of Ontario’s health law infrastructure. You can learn more about it by visiting its website (www.ccboard.on.ca), which has a considerable amount of information the Board’s mandate, practices, and decisions. You can also find reported decisions on CanLII. CCB hearings are open to the public. If you would like to attend, the best way to arrange it is to contact the Board by phone at (416) 3274142 or email (ccb@ontario.ca) to explain your interest and request the times and locations of upcoming hearings.

Iago on Trial on Trial – A Review of the 2016 Literary Moot DANIEL HERSHKOP (1L) Obscure insults, lavish outfits, and pretentious accents were highlights of this year’s Literary Moot Benefit. The trial concerned a contentious sequence of events in Shakepeare’s Othello. Is Iago, Othello’s scheming ensign, guilty of counselling him to murder his beloved wife Desdemona? As University in the Community’s Program Coordinator Joanne Mackay-Bennett put it “413 years later, Iago is finally getting his due.”

The Literary Moot is put on yearly at Innis College in support of University in the Community (UiTC). UiTC provides university level humanities courses to vulnerable adults who would not ordinarily consider formal education. It is an initiative supported by the Workers’ Educational Association, and U of

T’s Innis College and Senior College. Professors from U of T and Ryerson University volunteer their time to teach a range of topics each semester.

Despite being about 413 years too late, the trial of Iago went off without a hitch thanks to volunteers from across the legal profession.

Dean Iacobucci presided over this year’s trial.

Ms. Lauren Posloski of Norton Rose Fulbright acted for the crown, and Ms. Angela Chaisson of Ruby & Shiller was counsel for the defence.

Each side called upon witnesses played by members of the Faculty of Law. Bianca, a local courtesan, was played by Professor Brenda Cossman. She took the stand dressed in flowing robes and a flower crown.

When she denied being a “strumpet,” she was

given a rude awakening by the Defence.

“You’re a minxy, lady of the night, strumpety strumpet!” Ms. Chaisson bellowed in reply.

Admittedly, neither side quite knew what a “strumpet” was.

Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s attendant, was played by Professor Martha Shaffer.

She was composed on the stand, calling her role in Iago’s scheme the “biggest mistake of her life.”

Brabantio, a senator and Desdemona’s resentful father, was played by Professor Anthony Niblett. Bellicose and uncooperative, he admitted to using words that he could “neither understand nor embiggen.” Despite the pleas of both counsels and the presiding judge, he began describing Desdemona’s conception in

florid detail: “Many years ago, on a cold autumn eve, I looked at Desdemona’s mother, and said a daughter we need…”

As Brabantio left the stand, Dean Iacobucci noted “I think we are all relieved that that is over."

Despite convincing closing statements from both the defence and the crown (“The defence would have you rely on “facts”), it was clear to Dean Iacobucci that Iago was innocent. People whose names begin with I-A can’t be all bad, he reasoned. In fact, Iago is only a ‘bucci' away from something pleasing to the ear.

This year’s Moot, organized by Alayna Dueck (2L), was sponsored by Norton Rose Fulbright. It has raised nearly $3,500 for UiTC thus far.

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JANUARY 27, 2016 | 5

The In-No-Way-Definitive Guide to Winterlicious 2016 NICK PAPAGEORGE (1L) Toronto is an ersatz city in many respects (I’m looking at you, TTC) but at least twice a year it gets something right. That something is Winterlicious and its aptly-named counterpart Summerlicious. Those of you who have spent some time in Toronto should already know it, and to those still getting acquainted with the city, it is my pleasure to introduce you to this epicurean delight.

Winterlicious is an annual two-week long event, on from January 29th through February 11th this year. In addition to a handful of pricier ticketed events, restaurants across the city are offering superb deals in the form of three-course prix fixe menus. These are generally for dinner, though many have lunch menus as well. Winterlicious is a fantastic opportunity to eat for less at some of your favou-

rite places or try something new. With over 200 restaurants to choose from you are certain to find something that suits your tastes.

Below are a few suggestions, while the full list can be found online. Having a reservation is advisable during this event as places will get busy.

Wander not too far south of campus and you’ll find Baldwin Street. Once a hotbed of New Left radicalism and refuge for Vietnam draft dodgers, today the stretch between Beverley and McCaul is perhaps the most dependable concentration of restaurants in Toronto.

Matahari (Malay, Chinese, Peranakan, and Indian) and Valens (Mediterranean) are two excellent spots participating in Winterlicious, but the jewel of the street is Bodega, a contemporary French and Spanish bistro.

Travel east from campus on the subway for five or six stops and you’ll be on the Danforth.

This has long been Toronto’s Greektown, and it remains so, but the street is now also home to dozens of restaurants serving a variety of cuisines – and ten of them are participating in Winterlicious. Ouzeri is the class of the bunch and the go-to place for Greek food, but Globe Bistro (Canadian) and Il Fornello (Italian) certainly will not disappoint.

Winterlicious also gives you a prime chance to try restaurants regarded among the top ones in the city – priced accordingly during the rest of the year but highly accessible over these two weeks. Two such places are Bent and Lee (Chinese Fusion), run by world-renowned chef and fusion-cooking pioneer Susur Lee. Also, just steps away from the law school is La

Société (French) with its vibrant, bustling Parisian bistro atmosphere.

As prospective Bay Street lawyers, you might also want to get acquainted with Financial District mainstays like Biff ’s Bistro (French), Bymark (Canadian), and Jump (American) as well as one of the newer additions, SOCO Kitchen & Bar (Mediterranean).

There is also Canoe (Contemporary), located on the 66th floor of the TD Bank Tower and worth checking out for the view if nothing else.

Of course my recommendations should matter little, and probably not at all to you. So don’t take my word for it – check out the website, find something you like, and get going.

Bon Appétit!

6 | JANUARY 27, 2016

OPINIONS

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Move from the classroom to the courtroom.

If you’ve set your sights on a career in litigation, you want to apply all that you’ve learned so far where it really counts – in court. At Lenczner Slaght, you’ll spend more time preparing and presenting cases, guided by highly respected lawyers who can help you develop and polish your advocacy skills. As Canada’s leading litigation practice, we don’t just offer you more firsthand courtroom experience – we insist on it.

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JANUARY 27, 2016 | 7

Viva Voce LISANA NITHIANANTHAN (3L) A series totally not inspired by Humans of New York, providing a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of students (and faculty) at the Faculty of Law.

I think that I will have successfully watched all of the The Wire. Still working on that. I still have not watched it.

In ten years I will have watched The Wire…. 5 years ago? I thought I would have watched The Wire by now.

— Cory Bettel (1L)

10 years? Oh man. I don’t know. Board of Directors of some private corporation that pays me too much?

— Aron Nimani (3L)

10 years from now? Well, you’re assuming I’m going to be alive in ten years.

Probably doing law… I’m going to be writing the Google pages that Aron reads for his legal advice.

— Pat Chapman (3L)

Right now my greatest struggle is trying to be okay with the fact that I’m really not sure what I want to do in law. It can be intimidating to be surrounded by so many brilliant and capable individuals who always seem so sure of their future legal careers; however, I’m trying to be optimistic and be okay with my uncertainties. The struggle isn’t so much that I don’t know what I’m interested in or where my passions lie, but rather how I can go about pursuing them. It is very easy to get caught up in other peoples’ visions of success, so I’m working hard to remain cognizant of what drove me to apply to law school in the first place.

— Madison Hass (2L)

SLS Coffee House, January 19 PHOTOS BY ALEX WONG (3L)

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Rights Review Student Publication of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law

TERRORISM, FREE EXPRESSION, AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM: AN INTERVIEW WITH MOHAMED FAHMY Aidan Campbell (1L)

Award-winning Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy was arrested in Egypt and imprisoned for over a year on charges of reporting false news and conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group designated as terrorists. Many saw the charges as unjust and a campaign was launched to free him and his Al-Jazeera colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste. This effort, along with international diplomatic pressure, was believed to have contributed to his pardon in September.

Since being released he and his wife returned to Canada and started the Fahmy Foundation for Free Press, which uses the experience and exposure he has gained through his ordeal to agitate for the release of other imprisoned journalist around the world.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

AIDEN CAMPBELL [AC]: You have credited your release to an “unprecedented global campaign” – #FreeAJStaff – pushed by your employer, AlJazeera, civil society groups, your wife, and your lawyer, Amal Clooney. How will your foundation provide the same exposure to the numerous imprisoned journalists who do not have the weight of a multinational media organization standing behind them?

MOHAMED FAHMY [MF]: When I was out on bail for six months, before I was sent back to prison again, I took over part of my media campaign as well my legal and advocacy campaigns being held for me and my colleagues. I learned there is quite a big and organized network of organizations that work quite closely with NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, and I joined them.

I created the Fahmy Foundation because I wanted to take advantage of the media spotlight and incorporate a lot of the trust I have gained and the many contacts I’ve nurtured in the Middle East and abroad with the European Union, the United Nations, and different officials in different countries. My family and I became experts in understanding which strategies work and which do not; when to apply them and when not to; when to apply pressure and when to step back so you do not aggravate the government that’s imprisoning someone even more. We developed a system where we are in regular contact with the family of the person we are fighting for, or their lawyer or both.

So this is what I do now; I depend on this behind the scenes advocacy. I use social media platforms and I am interviewed regularly on the Arabic networks on the radio, TV, and

to happen but at the same time we need unprecedented approaches and schemes to fight terrorists. I lived with them for a year. I know how cunning and tech savvy they are.

It’s tough, but governments need to underMF: stand that they have to strike a balance beI think there needs to be separation of retween security measures and implementing sponsibilities and duties. There should be a civil liberties. If we lose that balance, we lose line between human rights approaches and what democracy means and what we stand the importance of dealing with allies to fight for. Until this balance is settled in Saudi Arathis unprecedented wave of terrorism. They bia and Egypt the security apparatus will conAC: should not be related. I don’t see why people tinue to infringe our civil liberties in these Could you comment on the case of Raif are always linking them both together. countries. The West has a duty as Badawi (a Saudi writer and activist well. But it’s not a simple line. It’s not who created the website “Free Sauthat we cut the arms deal with Saudi di Liberals” and was subsequently Arabia because of Raif Badawi; I imprisoned in 2012 for “insulting Isdon’t see it that way. There needs to lam.” His family was granted politibe new approaches and jurisdictions cal asylum in Canada while he reand treaties that protect journalists mains imprisoned in Saudi Arabia)? from prosecution, for example.

Just the other day Stéphane Dion, The Fahmy Foundation is my way the Foreign Minister, was pressed of helping others. While I was in that on whether or not he brought up the prison cell, knowing so many people case of Raif Badawi in meetings out there were fighting for me and with Saudi officials. Though he keeping my plight alive, it raised my wouldn’t say exactly what hapmorale and reminded me that I pened he did say he pushed for his wasn’t alone. Your mind can be your release. worst enemy inside and you can quickly go down and become hopeMF: less. It’s tough. You don’t know what I have read his case very carefultime it is, you don’t know what’s goly. I’ve spoken to Saudi Arabian ing to happen to you, you’re living in lawyers and with his wife. The issue a tiny cell, dirty with insects, you’re with Raif Badawi is such a disgrace sleeping on the floor. Knowing that because he was not criticising Isyou have not been forgotten helps. lam; he was criticising some of the The people I’m fighting for with the Muslim clerics, who are criticised Fahmy Foundation, even if they’re in by so many and in so many ways. It solitary confinement in the worst just happens to be that he took it a Mohamed Fahmy (Photo Credit: Marwamagid, Wikimedia Commons) prison in the Middle East, somehow, step further and created this webthrough the grapevine and inside the consite. The Court’s order also holds him reIt could be quiet advocacy, diplomacy becrete walls you get information. Whether it is sponsible for the comments made by others hind closed doors. It doesn’t have to be an from a guard, from somebody’s family visit, on the site. embarrassment to the Saudi government, or otherwise, you find out that there are peoCanada, through its Foreign Minister and where for example, Canada issues a public ple protesting for you in Canada, or that that the way Trudeau is handling it, is trying to be statement condemning them. They could try there is a day of action for you, or your name as diplomatic as possible. The self-interest of to meddle quietly behind closed doors. is trending on Twitter. That keeps you going. the government always comes before human My wife was smuggling in printouts inside the rights. This is what we’re witnessing across AC: food she brought me and I was reading and the globe. This is what happened in my case You say that we should be careful to draw seeing all these pictures of people fighting for as well; Mr. Harper didn’t want to push the lines between counter terrorism and human me. That got me really, really excited. My role Egyptian government because he put their inrights but it seems that Saudi Arabia and became writing messages from inside the terests before human rights. Although he’s Egypt are working to intentionally blur these prison and smuggling them out so that these not Canadian, I think Canada should do more lines. Is there a danger that they’re using the people fighting for me could also see that for Badawi, especially because his wife is alrecent international pressure against ISIS what they were doing was important, and to most Canadian and now has asylum in Sherand terrorism more broadly to curtail press continue fighting. brooke, Quebec. freedoms at home? on English networks as well. I try to mention these people and highlight their plight: that they are like me, victims of vague terrorism laws or of politics gone sour between nations, which was what happened to me, caught between Egypt and Qatar and the owner of AlJazeera. It is very, very important to keep the public engaged because that keeps their names out there.

Badawi has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; he just won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, which is one of the most recognized awards in the world for democracy. From my understanding, there is this split among the Saudi officials: some believe he should be freed, others think he’s done a lot of damage. But the situation is just unacceptable.

AC: What would it look like for Canada to take more action?

MF: We are now witnessing the worst attack on press freedoms and human rights in a generation and the so-called “War on Terror” is being used to imprison journalists, and it is being used with little to no transparency. This “War on Terror” has partly become a war on journalists. It is very dangerous to allow this

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VICTIM PARTICIPATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Misha Boutilier (1L) “I feel that my voice should be heard throughout the world because it is not going to help only me, but the whole clan, the whole Acholi tribe.” These words, spoken by a victim who participated in the pre-trial period of cases against members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (the “LRA”) in Uganda, illustrate the importance of victim participation at the International Criminal Court (the “ICC”).

Speaking anonymously as part of a group of individuals who were, among other things, abducted and forced to be child soldiers, this victim felt that the ICC could provide a meaningful forum for the voices of victims to be heard. Yet, not all victims who participate at the Court share this sentiment. Consider the words of one Kenyan who was the victim of ethnic violence after Kenya’s 2007 election.

After the Prosecutor’s case against Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta for inciting postelection violence in 2007-2008 collapsed in 2014, this victim felt that “The next time there is ethnic bloodshed in Kenya, the ICC should not even bother showing up.”

The ICC was created to hold the perpetrators of mass crimes accountable to their victims. Speaking at the 1998 Rome Conference, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declared that the new Court’s “overriding interests must be that of the victims and the international community as a whole.”

As Madam Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda recently declared, the ICC is meant to seek “accountability for the victims” and is “the voice of those victims.”

The Rome Statute places justice for victims at the centre of the ICC’s mandate. Victims are not formal legal parties before the Court, but they are given a voice. Article 53 requires the Prosecutor to take into account “the interests of victims” when deciding whether to

initiate a prosecution. Likewise, Article 54 di- large part to provide redress to victims. If vicrects the Prosecutor to “respect the interests tims do not feel confident in the Court and and personal circumstances of victims” dur- support its investigations, it will be difficult ing the investigation stage of proceedings. for the Prosecutor to justify politically sensiVictims are able to participate at every stage tive investigations that anger powerful states. of the proceedings where their interests are In fact, the Prosecutor and victims have affected and their participation would not be worked effectively together in the past. Preprejudicial to a fair trial. They are not mere Trial and Appeals Chambers have repeatedly witnesses. The Victims notified victims of admisParticipation and Repasibility and jurisdictional ration Section and the proceedings and allowed Victims and Witnesses victim submissions. In Unit of the ICC also exProsecutor v. Germain ist to interact with vicKatanga, for instance, tims and encourage the Appeals Chamber their participation. considered the submisThe ICC’s efforts to sions of victims that supencourage victim parported the Prosecutor’s ticipation and emphaarguments on admissibilsize the interests of vicity of evidence. Victims tims are fundamental to are also able to tell their its effectiveness and lestories to the Court and gitimacy. The ICC depresent evidence. In pends on the willingProsecutor v. Lubanga, ness of victims to the Trial Chamber alprovide testimony to eflowed victims to tell their fectively prosecute perstories, ensuring that the petrators and secure harm they suffered was convictions. If victims documented and acFatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International CriminalCourt arriving at the Global Summit to do not feel that the knowledged. The ProseEnd Sexual Violence in Conflict, 12 June 2014.

Court is sufficiently cutor and victims jointly (Photo Credit: Foreign and Commonweath concerned about their emphasized the victims’ Office, Wikimedia Commons) interests and needs, many will choose not to suffering as aggravating circumstances in the participate. Victim participation also im- sentencing phase of Lubanga, and the Court proves the effectiveness of the Court’s pre- took these factors into consideration. ventative function. When perpetrators of However, the scope of the charges laid has mass atrocities are forced to face their vic- sometimes led to tension between the Prostims in court and listen to their testimony, it ecutor and victims. In Lubanga, for instance, sends a powerful message against impunity. the Prosecutor only filed charges relating to Finally, victim participation is essential to the the use of child soldiers, because of what Court’s legitimacy because the ICC exists in was deemed insufficient evidence on the sex-

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS OF RIGHTS REVIEW The International Human Rights Program’s Rights Review is excited to announce we are partnering with Ultra Vires! In this new format, you will hear from our authors in each issue of Ultra Vires, learn about current human rights issues as they happen, and find out what your peers have been working on outside of the classroom.

We would like to thank our past associate editors for all of their hard work on previous editions of Rights Review: Kartiga Thavaraj, Emma Romano, Diana Berbece, Roxana Parsa, and Lisana Nithiananthan. We are looking forward to these new exciting changes!

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ual violence count. Victims of sexual violence at the hands of Mr. Lubanga’s militia attempted to broaden the charges to include sexual violence, but the Court rejected these requests because of the Prosecutor’s independence. Yet, victim submissions have helped broaden the scope of investigations in a few cases. In Situation in the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, the Pre-Trial Chamber directed the Prosecutor to expand the scope of the investigation because of victim testimony about sexual and gender-based crimes.

Another point of tension is the type of reparations awarded to victims. In Lubanga, the Trial Chamber chose to award collective reparations to the communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that Lubanga’s militia had taken child soldiers from. However, victims generally rejected collective reparations since they awarded reparations to communities that had been actively complicit in the taking of child soldiers. These victims also argued that collective reparations did not provide direct redress for the harm they had suffered individually. The victims are currently appealing the decision on these grounds.

The ICC has demonstrated a concerted effort to integrate victim participation into the Court’s processes. At the same time, the Court should remain vigilant and attentive to the difficulties, challenges, and barriers that victims can experience when trying to access justice at the ICC. The Court’s effectiveness, legitimacy, and ability to provide redress to the victims whose interests it was established to serve depend on its continued attentiveness to the victims of the crimes prosecuted at the ICC.

OPINIONS

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The Abysmal State of Sexual Assault Services at U of T SARAH BELL (3L) Trigger warning: sexual assault We’ve all heard the statistics.

Roughly one in four North American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

We don’t even have reliable statistics for men because of the stigma associated with being a male survivor of sexual assault. The numbers for members of queer and trans communities are, of course, worse, as are those for communities of colour.

I know I don’t have to preach at you about the danger and prevalence of sexual assault writ large. But I’m wondering, dear reader, if you know who you would turn to here at U of T if you had experienced sexual assault or violence. When it comes to support for survivors in our student body, what resources do your $33k tuition, your $75 UTSU fee, and your mysterious $290 “Studt Life Prog & Serv” charge actually buy?

If you thought, “I’m at Uof T, we’re a highranking and prestigious school in the heart of a province whose sexual education curriculum reform is totally progressive! I pay higher tuition than Osgoode! I pay student union fees equivalent to those at UBC. I should be getting better university-provided and studentdriven sexual assault support resources than those guys,” then you’d be very, very wrong.

The resources for students here are pitiful.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union provides no student-driven sexual assault resources. Combing through the list of clubs funded by the UTSU gives no indication that a survivor support group exists. Search for “sexual assault resources” on the Graduate Students Union page and you get no results.

Nothing. Somehow, in nearly 200 years, not a single student initiative at U of T has managed to develop supports for survivors of sexual assault and violence.

Compare this complete lack of infrastructure to student initiatives provided on other

Canadian campuses. York, Dalhousie, McGill and UBC all have peer-to-peer sexual assault counseling resources. They provide information and act as non-judgmental listeners for survivors who need to tell their stories. York’s 24-hour phone line (SASSL) has been active for 20 years, and is funded by a $2.10 fee from each registered student. It is available to York students and “any individuals who reach out.”

This means that U of T students would be wel-

offer any sexual assault support resources because the school provides high quality care.

No, wrong again. Only one counsellor at the Health & Wellness Centre is trained and experienced in sexual assault counseling; this person, by the way, recently told a student who had been assaulted by a member of her research lab not to go to the police because she “already got an apology – what more do you want?”

comed at SASSL and better served by York’s resources than by our own campus. SAHPL at Dalhousie has drop-in hours and a 24h phone service funded by their Student Union (and also supported by their infamous Faculty of Dentistry); UBC’s AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC, $3.39/semester/student), is an inviting office located in a visible, accessible corner of the Nest, the hub of student life at the school.

School Faculty of Law website links to information University services offered through Student-driven services offered Fee per student / Approximate total funding per year Maybe the UTSU and the UTGSU don’t

Information about the Health & Wellness Centre’s sexual assault counseling resources is buried deep in a confusing—and somehow simultaneously infantilizing—new website. The homepage features a scrolling banner of calm, meditative students doing yoga and proclaiming that we’re “all together now!” which I guess is meant as a play on the newly combined Health Services and CAPS. So, next you click on the Services tab, and then on Services again in the drop-down menu. This opens up another menu with options including Sexual Health – you’d think there should be information about sexual assault counseling under that, right? Wrong. This section briefly describes services such as: birth control, emer-

gency contraception, pregnancy support and STI education and care. Maybe in the wake of your trauma you hadn’t had the time to process or consider any of these further consequences of sexual assault, and suddenly you are confronted by the possibility of pregnancy or STI transmission. And yet, you still don’t have any information about counseling. At this point, it seems to make more sense to bypass the school in favour of resources provided by organizations in the city.

A tiny blurb about the sexual assault counsellor does exist. It is actually in the Mental Health section, under Assault Counseling.

You cannot book an appointment with the counsellor online. You cannot walk-in when you are in crisis. There is no information on the website about the counsellor, what kind of therapy they provide, or the hours they are available. The McGill counseling website, by contrast, has names, biographies, and therapy beliefs of each individual counsellor at McGill Mental Health Services, so you can research your practitioner ahead of time if this makes you feel more comfortable.

Something has to change. There are examples of successful programs from students and administration at most other large Canadian universities. Nearly a quarter of the women currently at U of T will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and many of these will happen during their university years. That’s more than 10,000 women. What are you willing to do to support survivors? How much would you be willing to pay to provide a helpline to those in need? How much are you willing to fight to overhaul this system? And why the fuck hasn’t anybody done it yet?

If you have suggestions or are interested in getting involved in a peer-to-peer sexual assault support service, please contact the Feminist Law Students’ Association or fill out our Google form (link in the online version of the article).

Do Things DAVID PARDY (4L) The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law is a fascinating place for its sheer brainpower.

In my fourth year here (sigh), after meeting many alumni and current students, I have begun to see what I would describe as a problem and an opportunity that stem from this.

The problem is laziness. Many of us are lazy. We skip class and don’t do readings. We stay in bed all day. We binge watch Netflix.

We surf the web aimlessly. We engage in armchair activism by posting links to Facebook.

And then we worry about the future.

You know what will serve you the best in the long run? Doing things.

Create art. Learn to play an instrument.

Learn to code in Python. Build a website. Experiment in the kitchen. Start a small business. Solve a problem you see. Write and perform a song. Join the board of a non-profit organization. Join a sports team and attend every practice and game. Write something for the Toronto Star. Start a new charity event.

Listen to an audiobook. Read every book by Kurt Vonnegut. Read every day. Write every day. Become an expert in origami. Learn about the four different financial statements.

Complete a Coursera course. Meditate every day. Become great at chess. Join Toastmasters.

Listen to and compare all of Mozart’s piano concertos. Start a club. Make a new great friend. Become an expert on Nelson Mandela’s life. Run a half marathon. Run every day.

I don’t care - just choose something and do it!

Just make sure it challenges you.

Why am I saying this? This might sound crazy to a law student drowning in readings.

Let’s take a step back.

Firstly, doing things that you want to do is a method of self-actualization. If you do something you want to do, you will feel better about yourself and your life. You will create and understand your own identity. This will provide immense value to you, especially as you become busy professionals and you engage in potentially long term relationships with other people.

Secondly, it’s important to be well-rounded.

You use the skills and qualities you cultivate in your life. Maybe origami won’t teach you skills applicable to lawyering, but it will teach you patience, focus, and dexterity. The greatest of our alumni (and people, generally) exist

on the edge of their own capabilities. They encounter and overcome pain. When you think you can’t focus any longer, when you struggle, then you evolve into a new version of yourself, one that is more capable of conquering its surroundings.

Thirdly, doing things is helpful for a recruitment point of view. When you do things, you signal to others that you have self-determination and you have unique skills and qualities. You also become more interesting to speak with. You know what’s more impressive than being at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law? Being there and completing a triathlon.

Fourthly, you will become better able to shape your own career. Observing the paths of many of our alumni, and listening to the frustrations of young lawyers, it is obvious that many of us will not be lawyers forever. You will become more desirable and useful if you can do things that others cannot do, particularly if the things you choose to do involve learning or solving real-world problems. As you do things, you will uncover problems in the world and maybe some solutions. You will

also learn what you like doing.

Fifthly, you are your most productive when you are busy. JD/MBA’s can attest to this by virtue of their year at Rotman. When you are busy you prioritize and you focus. You set short term goals and you accomplish them.

You engage your your cognitive effort and stretch your physical stamina. And you learn how to relax when needed.

Law students are not too busy to do things (certain moments in 1L being excepted).

There are many examples: Serin Remedios, who cooks amazing things and creates art; Rachel Kattapuram, who served on the SickKids Foundation board; Joe McGrade and Veenu Goswami, who are among the world’s best debaters; recent alumni Ramin Wright, who helped build the company BlueJ; the entire SLS. The list is long. These people are great, but they are not gods. You too can find the time to do things. But again: make sure the things you do challenge you.

If you are content with what you are doing, by all means, live your best life. And for those of us looking for new meaning and challenges: do things.

SPECIAL FEATURE

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JANUARY 27, 2016 | 11

Boots on the Ground Set your precedent at Bennett Jones and hit the ground running.

bennettjones.com/students

12 | JANUARY 27, 2016

OPINIONS

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Exchange Pros and Cons HARRISON CRUIKSHANK (3L) Foreign correspondent, is of course, a facetious title. The articles are jokes (in both the literal sense, and also hopefully in the hiplike-the-kids-say way, meaning funny). That said, speaking to my fellow exchange-ees and drawing on my own experience, I am in a place to provide all of you exchange-wannabees some serious advice.

Please find below a multi-factor non-exhaustive pros & cons list to decide whether going on exchange is right for you: Pro 1: Exchange is exciting Being out of North America for a four months is indisputably the main draw of exchange. Whether going to Europe or Asia, you will meet new people (probably other exchange students), eat exciting new foods, and generally be immersed in an entirely different culture.

This is a major pro if (A) this is an experience you crave and (B) you have not done much travelling. One of the top reasons you’ll find people choose not to go on exchange is because they did it in undergrad, or had an IHRP grant in 1L summer, and so they are not as awed by the opportunity to sleep in a foreign bed for a few months.

Con 1: Exchange can be very boring The other side of the inherent excitement of being on exchange is that at times you may find yourself very bored. Being in a strange place can be isolating, and you may need to actively work to make plans. Going out all the time also costs money, and with the brutal Canadian dollar you may find yourself having to spur activities that drain your wallet. Depending on where you stay, at a certain point you may find you’ve explored the entirety of the free-activities of the city you’re staying in. I watched a lot of Netflix on exchange.

This is a fairly easily mitigated: go on ex-

change with friends, make friends at your host institution, and make lots of (affordable) plans.

You could also take up a new hobby; have you ever tried boxing in French? Do you know how to write code? These are things you could do simply by virtue of having a term away from your UoT commitments. Also, be really rich if possible. Having money is a great life hack.

Pro 2: Exchange is amazingly easy This point merits its own article, hopefully some handsome 3L wrote one One of the reasons you might get bored is because the host institutions are, spoiler alert, not Uof T Law. Many of them are undergraduate programs, and even the graduate level programs are by all accounts not nearly as challenging as a term at the future home of Jackman Hall. You also probably won’t have any pesky extracurriculars to worry about. Journal work? Forget it! Clinics? NOT THIS TIME. Easy can be pretty wonderful at this point in your career. You likely worked pretty hard over your 2L summer, and you’re about to start working the hours of a grown-up lawyer with the potential added stress of your hireback status after articles. Now is a great time to take a break. On exchange, you can just do you.

Con 2: Exchange is painfully easy Easy classes are a great novelty at first, but this novelty can wear off for some. Easy classes are also often paired with poor instruction relative to Toronto. You sort of take for granted being taught by a world-class faculty until you’re not being taught by one. While quality of instruction does vary from institution to institution, a lower level of intellectual stimulation is almost guaranteed. Of this year’s students, the only ones who described their experience to me as anything more than a joke were those in Geneva, and on a scale of 1-5

where 1 is “I slept through my classes and got the gold medal” and 5 is an average term at Toronto, it still only scored a 4.

Whether you care about this is up to you. If your plan for 3L is to create the easiest year of school possible while you run out the clock until job-time, then you probably could not care less about classes being too easy. If you want to learn the law and be excited about your classes more than anything else, staying in Toronto is frankly a better choice. If you want to have your cake and eat it too, try your best to pick a host institution known to be a bit more rigorous.

Pro 3: You will have great opportunities to travel Your home during exchange is a probably a gateway to either Europe or Asia. By Canadian standards, international flights are all fairly affordable—and don’t forget about trains and buses. My own relatively light travel schedule by exchange student standards still brought me to cities across six different countries. Many students in Hong Kong traveled so frequently that they were out of their host city for more than half of their exchange.

People exaggerate when they say this is the last opportunity you’ll have for travel, but only slightly. You might at some point consciously take a break from your career to travel. Otherwise, the next time you’ll be able to spend months abroad with next to no responsibility is when you retire. If this sort of freaks you out, exchange might be the right call.

Con 3: Travelling costs a lot of money Our currency is terrible right now, and it’s getting worse. It is not out of the realm of possibility to see a Canadian dollar worth half an American one in the not-too-distant future. If you think the cost of living in Toronto is high, look up your potential host cities—most of

them are even worse, especially factoring in the exchange rate. It is reasonably foreseeable that you could go on exchange and then do nothing when you realize you can’t afford fun.

This is an inevitable consideration (unless you’re really rich, in which case you can stop reading here). Look at the costs associated with potential host cities, and work out your budget. It is true that you can rack up debt now while you have time for fun and pay it off later when all you do is work, however this only applies if you have access to the ability to go further in debt. So the question is: can you realistically enjoy your exchange without reaching the point where Unc’ Scotsh cuts you off ? Or will you travel halfway across the world to live in squalor, crushing grapes with your feet for crooked wine makers just to get by? Think on that.

So weigh your factors: Are you excited about living abroad?

Are you going to get bored for lack of funds/ creativity?

Do you need a break from work?

Do you care about lowering the quality of your education for one term?

Do you have a travel bug?

Do you have the money necessary to feed that aforementioned bug?

Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to research cities. Talk to as many people as possible, and plan ahead so you can hit the ground running. Happy travels. Or, happy stay-athomes. Whichever you prefer.

What is the Legacy of the Transition Space?

ALEX CARMONA (3L) Way back in the good ol’ days of September of 2013, when oil prices were high and Donald Trump was just a TV celebrity instead of a worryingly Kim Jong Un-y spectre of populism gone awry, a naïve, optimistic 1L with exactly one week of law school experience wrote an article for Ultra Vires reflecting on his status as a “Transition Space native.” In this column, said author (me), wrote some reasonable stuff about how it’s hard to miss something you never had (the old buildings, which have now all but faded from institutional memory, save in the foggy minds of some wizened 4Ls), and some utterly ridiculous nonsense about the law school community forging a better relationship with the undergrads (I know, fuck them, right?).

It has since been over two years, and us 3Ls have finally been saddled with the definitive, not at all surprising news in a cheerful email from the Dean Yak that no, we will not move into the new building before we graduate. Not for the last few months of our last semester.

Not for exams. Never (although, as a fun twist, we may have to hike across the street to Jack-

man to use the library soon). With the final nail in the coffin of any wild rumours about a pre-summer move, now is as good a time as any to examine the legacy of our time at the venerable Victoria College.

Its important to recognize that when we as 0Ls were making our decisions about which specific law school we wanted to be the one to beat any notions of using our degrees to “help people” out of us, we were fully informed of the situation. We were told the old buildings would be closed at the start of our first year, that we’d be going to class at Vic, and that we would be moving into the brand-spankin’ new Jackman Hall in 3L. But of course, we didn’t really believe them. Two years to get tree cutting permits and build a massive new building? Clearly a fiction. But it was a convenient fiction, kind of like when your Tinder match responds after a three-day delay with “sorry, I was in the shower” and you play just along because, come one, what the hell else are you gonna do? We played along because we wanted to go to U of T Law, for all of the reasons that had nothing to do with quality of lodg-

ings—the faculty, employment statistics, not having to live in a crappy town, yadda yadda yadda. I think the law school ultimately delivered on those points. We continue to slay in the OCI and articling hires, many of the profs are geniuses regardless of whether they’re teaching in Flavelle, Jackman or some basement in Emmanuel College, and we aren’t in Windsor.

But there’s a caveat. When it comes to the overall story of our illustrious institution, the three years spent at Vic will just be a small blip in the long history of U of T Law. What really matters to the administration, and rightly so, is getting the new building squared off right. Unfortunately, that pretty clearly resulted in an administration that, for our cohort’s entire time at U of T Law, has been in future planning mode. From small things like banning this year’s Law Games team from obtaining outside sponsorship so all donations to U of T Law go toward the building fund, to larger concerns like the ever-present tuition debate, the administration has made our cohort’s experience at the law school less of a

priority than would have been the case had they not Jackman Hall on their plate. It’s not anything to blame the administration for—it was just an unfortunate circumstance for us that this massive project was undertaken by the Faculty during our stint here. Soon we’ll be gone, Jackman Hall will open, and the administration will be better placed to prioritize the current student experience. In four year’s time, not a single student at the school will even remember the Transition Space—but for the 2016 class, that’s all we’ll remember of U of T Law. And while I’m sure our memories will be mostly fond ones, I don’t think I’m alone in saying Transition Space will leave a subtle tinge of bitterness.

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OPINIONS/DIVERSIONS

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Pub Night: Apathy, and then a Redemption on Church Street NICK PAPAGEORGE (1L) Pub Night is appealing enough on its face.

Pub – that’s good. Night – I also like that. Yet for first-years, pub night has come to seem like a duty. Thankfully it is one we cannot be sued for breaching.

Asking a colleague if they’re going to the pub almost always elicits a response of, “Maybe. I’m not sure. Reading and cases and sleep deprivation and U of T law and such.” The respondent also tends to ask where the Call to the Bar is on that given week, as if it being a block too far to the West will be determinative.

Of course this may not be the usual case.

But this is what I do, thus it becomes the usual

case for those of you that choose to read on.

Faced with the question of attendance, we all – again, maybe mostly me – grasp at the most non-obligatory excuses.

Why do we/I shirk this drunken duty?

What dissuades me/us from these weekly liquor treatments? Is it the petrifying nature of Niblett’s cold-calling – before you ask him to talk to you? The monotony of federalism? The very existence of tort law? The fact that I have to wake up before noon? Yes. I surely paint a bleak picture. Law students not jumping at any and every opportunity for quasi-sanctioned debauchery should strike everyone as troubling. But fear not, for we may

very well have located the simplest of solutions: Church Street bars.

As one participant in the most recent pub night put it, the Church Street bar provided a pub night that was “more buck and more wild” than the rest. Where other such nights were said to be exhausting, this one was, “I don’t know…just way different.” Others were just happy that the law faculty was willing to come out and support this sort of night.

Some kissed a girl, and they liked it; others did not care, and they loved it. Lyrics to that effect had many swarming the stage at the night’s end – an unruly mass of humanity overtaking the androgynous performers,

seemingly to the establishment’s delight (at the very least there were no ejections that I saw, and I was a prime candidate). It was total cacophony and chaos in the dance hall, lasers and all. Once the final descent into madness was complete there was nothing less than unadulterated excitement flowing out of the venue.

From this pint forward, only Church Street pub nights will do.

Blast from the Past – Cartoons, Weed, and Underwear JUSTIN KHORANA-MEDEIROS (1L) November 20, 2007 – “JD students conserve energy – forego climate change conference” by Robert Wakulat In the run-up to global climate negotiations in Bali, the Faculty of Law organized and cohosted an interdisciplinary climate change conference: “A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada – November 1-2, 2007.”

In spite of featuring prominent academics, industry and private sector representatives, as well as an Assistant Deputy Minister from the Ministry of Energy, the conference failed to arouse excitement in the student body. “We also weren’t sure why there weren’t more JD students” said Professor Andrew Green, a lead organizer. “We advertised in multiple forums and made it free for students. Was it Reading Week?” According to Mr. Wakulat however, “those that did attend found it was illuminating and worth their time.”

Panelist and long-forgotten journalist Andrew Coyne noted “…you don’t have to sign up and take an oath and say, ‘I think everything put out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is gospel.’” One wonders what he might say about the subject today. I suppose we will never know.

September 11, 2007 – “Simon says…

Profiling Simon Stern, one of the new additions to the faculty this year” by Maria Zeldis Professor Simon Stern, fresh from his adventures PhD-ing, clerking for a federal judge in Seattle, and practicing litigation in Washington D.C., began his U of T teaching career with a criminal law small group and a course called “Legal Mysteries.” Asked who was the sexiest Supreme Court Justice, he wisely (and immediately) responded: “There are no literally sexy Supreme Court judges in the conventional sense of the term. But if you take it metaphorically, how can there be any doubt?

It’s obviously Bora Laskin! ...Although L’Heureux Dubé is a close second.”

1Ls currently enjoying LPPE with Professor

Stern may be interested to learn that he prefers boxers to briefs, liquor to beer, haikus to limericks, and New York to Los Angeles. It all makes so much sense now!

November 21, 2006 – “Debate over Danish cartoons turns hostile” by Jonathan Song, Mark Myhre, Stephen Birman Sandwiched between the Rushdie Affair of 1989 and last year’s Charlie Hebdo tragedy was the Danish cartoons controversy of 2006.

The Federalist Society, in concert with the Faculty of Law, held a debate about whether the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed should have been published here in Canada. Ezra Levant (then editor of the Western Standard and today hack journalist) argued for the motion, while Islamic Law and Business Professor Mohammad Fadel argued against.

Unsurprisingly, the UV journalists in attendance described the Mr. Levant’s debating style as “witty, jocular, and at times abusive” while Mr. Fadel maintained a composure at once “calm and academic”. The arguments made on either side were typical of free expression versus cultural sensitivity discussions: the cartoons were simply an attempt to antagonize and demonize Muslims, while alternatively media outlets were abandoning freedom of expression, yielding to intimidation, and behaving hypocritically vis-à-vis other religions.

Ultimately “feelings about the debate were mixed. Dean Moran, who was not in attendance, said that she wouldn’t be inclined to invite Mr. Levant back to the school any time soon, because several students told her the debate did not take the academic tone she would have expected.”

September 16, 2008 – “UV first-year survey results” by Amanda Melvin Ever wonder what 1Ls were like 8 years ago? If you’re anything like me, you’ve thought

continued on p. 14

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Cassels Brock 2015/2016 season

Ultra Vires student ad Contact: Heather Murray “Doodle - Resolve Disputes” 2016 hmurray@casselsbrock.com quarter page portrait, b&w 416 869 5782 - fax 416 642 7137

Please PRINT a hard copy of the file and either FAX it or SCAN and EMAIL it back to me, thanks!

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14 | JANUARY 27, 2016

Hot Destination: Law School a Surprisingly Sweet Reading Week Option CLARA ROZEE (3L) AND MAUD ROZEE (1L) It’s about three weeks until Reading Week (not that we’re counting), and now is the perfect time to get started with your vacation planning. You’ve got a whole glorious week to relax, unwind, and try to not think about your impending exams. Maybe you were considering a tropical getaway? Just picture it: you, on the beach, curled up with Waddams, the sun in your eyes, sand on the pages, your highlighter dried up by the heat…actually that sounds pretty terrible, doesn’t it? Ultra Vires is partnering with the Tourism Bureau of the Faculty of Law to promote a better Reading Week option: the Law School Staycation.

Here’s a sample itinerary to inspire you.

When was the last time you sat back and enjoyed the many amenities of the Birge Carnegie Student Lounge? It’s so easy to overlook the comforting aroma of the couches, the rich colours of the broadloom, and the consistent functionality of the microwave. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a stale Timbit left behind by

one of the locals. You’ll have all this beauty to yourself, so spread out a towel and pull out that tax treatise you’ve been saving.

For lunch, exciting dining options await in Ned’s Student Cafe. Treat yourself to a ripe muffin, some chocolate milk (hey, you’re on staycation!) or even a box of sushi á la Ned. The sun is overrated—after a few hours underground in the Bora Laskin Law Library, you’ll forget it even exists. Lose yourself in the forest of bookshelves. Read about the laws of foreign lands, and use a cocktail parasol as a bookmark for an extra tropical touch.

Take the time to experience the historic wonders of Falconer and Flavelle, the twin jewels in the crown of the law school. In the basement of Falconer, you’ll find the last vestige of a bygone era—a vending machine advertising Minute Maid juices. You’ll wonder why anyone ever ventures to the equator as you sweat in the Falconer basement/furnace room/bookstore, sipping on a vintage ‘97 Five

Alive from the vending machine.

When the mood strikes, ascend to the Solarium, one of the premier spots in the city to view the sun while still being at U of T law school.

After dinner, mosey down to the Reading Room to soak up some local colour. Meet the other people who have chosen to staycation at the law school, and swap stories about the day’s adventures. As the sun sets, let the soothing whir of florescent lights lull you to sleep.

The price of this deluxe staycation starts at just under $35,000 a year! Flights are not leaving nonstop from every major airport. Contact Sara-Marni Hubbard to book your get-not-away.

ultravires.ca

continued from p. 13 BLAST FROM THE PAST of little else. It’s kept us up at night. Well, now we have the answers!

96.1% of respondents were of the opinion that U of T is the best law school in Canada, with a “vast majority” of students picking it as the best school in North America (Yale making a distant second). Most students were from Ontario, with British Columbians trailing not far behind.

The entering class’s favourite subjects were, in order, Torts, Constitutional, and Contracts.

A full 40% of students planned on being in the top third of the class at the end of the school year.

Fully 66% of students planned to work for a big firm. 1Ls had an extremely wide range of expected salaries, with responses ranging from $0 (grad school plans) to $160,000 (New York firms?). Many students expressed a desire to make “enough” to cover their student debts.

On a more personal level, many students cited going to the gym, running, cooking, and playing/listening to music as top ways to destress. Unsurprisingly, 17% of respondents cited alcohol and marijuana as preferred leisure activities. Shockingly, the student body was split on the question of whether Batman or Superman was the better superhero.

(NB - This survey was not conducted in a scientific fashion and only sampled ¼ of the class.)

If you have what it takes.

Some people have long known what they want out of a career. They look beyond their present and focus on their future: a future with international scope, global clients and limitless possibilities.

If you are that person, you’ve just found where your future lies.

Law around the world nortonrosefulbright.com

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ultravires.ca

JANUARY 27, 2016 | 15

Word on the Street If you had to choose one U of T Law faculty member to be stranded on a desert island with, who would it be, and why?

“Dean Iacobucci, because we could talk about the Simpsons together.”

“I think it would probably be Alarie. He seems really resourceful. He could construct an incredible scheme for survival, as well as come up with a complex and balanced taxation regime.”

3L, red sweater, Reading Room “Jason Chin. He teaches Legal Research and Writing. He’s half Chinese, half white.

He’s gorgeous. I ran into him once, and I thought he was a student… I was like, “Hi, what’s your name?”… He was like “I’m a prof.”

2L, headphones, law library

“I’d pick Angela Fernandez. Because she’s so nice. She’d definitely selfsacrifice to save whoever she was trapped with.”

1L, eating sandwich, Birge lounge

“Anita Anand. She’s just the best. She’d be able to explain the situation to me, and I would understand. She brings candy for her class, too. Maybe she’d have candy with her.”

1L, purple sweater, Reading Room

“Niblett. I like him the best, but that’s not a good reason… Why Niblett? In case we got in jeopardy.”

2L, scarlet lipstick, Reading Room

“Drassinower. He’s delightful. He seems like he would be lovely the whole time.”

2L, black sweatshirt, Reading Room

“I pick Niblett too. He probably knows random facts about how to survive on a desert island.”

2L, eating popcorn, Reading Room

2L, venti Starbucks, Reading Room

Promises I Wish I Could Have Bid On MAUD ROZEE (1L) AND CLARA ROZEE (3L) If the SLS ever wants to raise some real ca$h money at the Promise Auction, then they should put some of these promises on the block.

Promisor: Every Professor Ever Promise: LIVE IN FEAR NO LONGER I will take your name off my cold call list, or, if you prefer, I will only cold call you when you give me a prearranged signal that means “I actually know this one and I want to make sure everyone knows I know it!”

you my map before the exam and then I’ll purposely fall on my sword during the exam so the curve is more favourable to you.

Promisor: The transcript-braggart Promise: NEVER FEEL BAD ABOUT YOUR GRADES AGAIN I’ll stop acting like a P is the end of the world when we all know that it’s a perfectly acceptable mark! I will also copy out “we’re all just lucky to be surrounded by such incredible intelligence” a thousand times and send it to you!

Promisor: A Seven Sisters Firm Promise: SET FOR LIFE Skip the whole “learning about the law” thing. Skip the whole “applying for a job” thing. Heck, just skip the next 40-ish years!

Become partner today, retire tomorrow. Salary included, obviously.

Promisor: That nerd Promise: GUILT-FREE CLASS SKIPPING I will send you my notes when you skip class (and I won’t be snarky about it) and I’ll give

Promisor: Your family Promise: LET YOU LIVE We’ll stop asking you about what your plans for this summer are! Also we’re sorry and we love you!

Promisor: The Supreme Court of Canada Promise: JUDICIAL POWER Rule on any case on the docket this year.

You write the judgement – we’ll make it unanimous. No questions asked.

Promisor: Scotiabank Promise: DEBT? What debt ;)

Promisor: Dean Iacobucci Promise: BE MY HEIR You can be Dean after me, and also inherit all my money. If bidding goes above $50, we’ll change your last name to Iacobucci. If you want, my wife and I will also legally adopt you – your choice!

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16 | JANUARY 27, 2016

ultravires.ca

Strang-er than Fiction JOSHUA FREEDMAN (3L) Like many of you, I spent ten hours over the holidays getting lost in the warm timbre of Dean Strang’s voice while watching Making a Murderer. But now, there’s probably a cold empty void in your heart that not even giving a bad Yelp review to Ken Kratz’s law firm can fix. Have no fear though, there are plenty of other shows, movies, and books to scratch your True Crime itch.

For those who like serials Why not try The Jinx? A six-part HBO series about deranged multi-millionaire Robert Durst, who at various points has been linked to three suspicious deaths. And, available on YouTube, is the eight-part The Staircase, an inside look into the defence team for the murder trial of novelist Michael Peterson.

For those who furtively look at the true crime section at Indigo, only to think that the checkout person will think you’re strange If you liked The Jinx, watch Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans, which delves into how complicit a family was in a child molestation scandal.

For the more literary inclined, I recommend the trilogy of books about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial. First up is Fatal Vi-

sion, which describes the MacDonald trial through the perspective of Joe McGinniss, a journalist who embeds himself with the defence team, poses as MacDonald’s friend, and then railroads him in the book.

When the discussion of ethics in journalism was actually about ethics in journalism, Janet Malcolm, of New Yorker fame, discussed the ethics of what McGinnis did during the trial in The Journalist and the Murderer (also see her excellent book, Iphigenia in Forest Hills).

Last, esteemed documentarian Errol Morris became interested in the case, and wrote a book, A Wilderness of Error, trying to discredit the state’s evidence.

For the true crime elitist Considered the classic of the True Crime genre, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote will satisfy your literary pretensions. Similarly, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt was high-brow enough to spend several years on the New York Times bestseller list. Spousal stabber Norman Mailer’s 1,000-page tome The Executioner’s Song won the Pulitzer for discussing the life and death of serial felon Gary Gilmore (the alleged inspiration for Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign). Also read Shot in the Heart, a memoir by Gary Gilmore’s brother.

For the Canadian reader Remember learning about the wrongful conviction of Donald Marshall? Well then go read Justice Denied, which discusses the very screw-ups involved in that case. Similarly, Until You Are Dead covers the wrongful murder conviction of Steven Truscott. For a more recent case, Innocence on Trial is about the setup of Ivan Henry on multiple counts of sexual assault.

For those interested in wrongful convictions What they did to Brendan Dassey was pretty terrible, but it actually followed a procedure called the Reid Technique, which you can read about in Douglas Starr’s New Yorker article The Interview (not the Seth Rogen & James Franco movie). For a set of movies where the police similarly manipulated a bunch of kids, the HBO Paradise Lost trilogy is essential viewing.

For those who saw The Hurricane, Rubin Carter’s searing prison memoir The 16th Round delves into the frustration of going to jail for a crime you didn’t commit.

The aforementioned Errol Morris rose to fame with his documentary The Thin Blue Line, which pretty convincingly proved that a man had been wrongfully imprisoned for

murder. Morris’ documentary was parodied in the Documentary Now! episode The Eye Doesn’t Lie. The (fictional) Sundance television show Rectify, focuses on the readjustments that someone wrongfully convicted of a crime has to make as they re-enter society.

Of course, I must mention two of my favourite articles of all time, Pamela Colloff ’s, The Innocent Man Part One and Two and David Grann’s Trial by Fire, both about the foibles of the Texas justice system.

For the academic Since we are in law school, I’d be remiss to not mention an academic book. Have a go at Convicting the Innocent, a very readable text that looks at several hundred cases of people who had their sentences overturned and the different factors that led to their wrongful convictions.

Happy viewing and reading!