Single Mothers Sue Legal Aid
- 28 August 2022
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Family Law
Constitutional challenge asks court to weigh in on legal funding for women fleeing abuse
The B.C. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday from a group of single mothers who are challenging the province’s legal aid system.
The case, launched in 2017 by the Single Mothers Alliance, argues the province’s legal aid funding for women fleeing abuse is inadequate, and puts them further at risk.
A judge will hear the latest arguments in their constitutional case this week, as the province tries for a second time to have the lawsuit dismissed.
“Gender-based family violence is really a life-or-death issue,” said Viveca Ellis, the advocacy group’s executive director, herself a single parent raising a 12-year-old son.
“When women who are already marginalized and are experiencing poverty have to navigate that system on their own … they are very, very, very at risk.
Experts say the risks to women navigating the legal system alone include unfavourable case outcomes — such as decreased access to children — and exposure to further abuse from ex-partners by way of face-to-face mediation, vexatious court filings, or encounters outside the courtroom.
Additionally, the time right after abusive relationships end is when the risk of violence against women is highest.
‘Access to courts cannot … mean unlimited funding’
The province’s Ministry of the Attorney General declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts.
In its legal filings, it argued the Single Mothers Alliance cannot speak for all single mothers’ interests, because a “test case” of a constitutional issue requires an individual plaintiff to sue.
The province said it provides adequate funding for the lowest-income single parents. However, it argued, not everyone needs a lawyer to get a fair outcome.
“The province agrees that it is an important policy objective to make reasonable access to the courts … available to low- and middle-income British Columbians,” B.C.’s lawyers wrote in a response dated May 14 last year, and “that single mothers have special needs in this regard.”
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