The Law Union News
Periodical profile published 1982

Publisher:  The Law Union of Ontario
Year Published:  1982
Resource Type:  Serial Publication (Periodical)
Cx Number:  CX2432

The Law Union of Ontario is a group of "socialist and progressive lawyers, law students and legal worker" that attempts to document in justices and mistreatment of people within the current legal system.

Abstract: 
The Law Union of Ontario is a group of "socialist and progressive lawyers, law students and legal worker" that attempts to document in justices and mistreatment of people within the current legal system.

The October, 1981 issue of their publication, The Law Union News, focuses on the police, The McDonald Commission Report on RCMP wrongdoing is condemned as a coverup; its 1800 pages tell a litany of crimes without perpetrators, without victims, without punishment and without compensation."

The inability of the Commission to gain pertinent information is demonstrated in an article that sketches the agreement between the government and the Commission via an Order-in-Council. This allowed the Commission access only to the indexes of Cabinet Minutes from which it then had to have probable grounds in order to then ask the Secretary of Cabinet for permission to review the actual minutes.

The theme of the Union's eighth annual conference, held this fall, was "Controlling the Police in a Democratic Society". Other seminars discussed the gay bath house raids in Toronto and problems of private prosecutions against the police, censorship and control of the artist, the position of complainants and defendants in rape prosecutions and the political dimension of refugee status.