Hey Charles,
New Brunswick's continuing lack of investigative journalism by the mainstream media is troubling. The latest is the CBC's reporting on the poor legal representation of Justin Bourque by NB lawyer David Lutz. Here are the CBC stories, as reported:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/justin-bourque-case-not-being-taken-up-by-n-b-law-society-1.3004419
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/justin-bourque-s-lawyer-david-lutz-defends-handling-of-case-1.3002407
The CBC quoted the Law Society of New Brunswick's Executive Director, Marc Richard, as saying the "group" does not get involved in individual cases and "It's not in the Society's mandate to make judgements on the quality of service that Bourque's lawyer David Lutz provided..." Since the sole purpose of the law society is to regulate the legal profession, Mr. Richard is clearly lying. The Society's governing legislation requires them to investigate such failures as Mr. Lutz's, which include: agreeing with the Crown that his client is guilty of one of the most heinous crimes in Canadian history, not questioning the sentence (which broke all precedents even though it was nowhere near as heinous a crime as others have committed) and failing to obtain an independent psychiatric evaluation of Mr. Bourque.
Let's not forget another lawyer who recently failed to do that for his client - T. J. Burke. That failure contributed to Ron's death.
Mr. Richard lied again when he stated to the CBC that the Law Society could not investigate unless a complaint is made. Well, Mr. Hébert made a complaint and was ignored. Also, the Law Society Act empowers them to investigate even when no complaint has been filed.
The CBC let us down - they did not bother looking at the Law Society's actual mandates and duties and has participated in perpetuating the lies its Executive Director, Mr. Richard, told. They also failed to find out that David Lutz is on the Law Society's Discipline Committee!!! Of course they are not going to investigate or discipline him - he is one of their "chosen" ones.
No wonder this province is in the mess it's in.
Concerned Citizen