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OTTAWA - The Canadian Bar Association's work on legal aid, independence of the judiciary and advocacy on behalf of the profession will be outlined by CBA National President Eugene Meehan during his visit to Vancouver, Sept. 22-25, 1999.
Mr. Meehan will address the Annual General Meeting and Council Meeting of the CBA's British Columbia Branch, in Vancouver, on Saturday, Sept. 25.
At the Council meeting, he will outline the CBA's position on legal aid. "The CBA has put legal aid funding on the agenda," says Mr. Meehan. "As a society, we don't build state-of-the-art, high-tech, high service delivery hospitals and then say either ‘You can't get in,' or ‘You can get in, but you'll have to operate on yourself.' We don't run the health care system that way. Why are we doing that to the justice system?"
Mr. Meehan will also speak out about recent attacks on judges. "Criticizing court activities and judicial decision-making are now a popular sport. Informed criticism — even negative criticism of courts — is good but personal attacks on judges are not. Who is there to defend our legal system and the independent judges who are a vital part of it?"
The CBA has an important role to play in this process. "We have to speak out to defend an independent judiciary and an independent Bar. Without an independent judiciary and Bar, you do not have a democracy."
Born in Scotland in 1952, Eugene Meehan is a Supreme Court litigator with Lang Michener in Ottawa, specializing in assisting other lawyers who are taking cases to the Supreme Court of Canada. He received his LL.B. from the University of Edinburgh in 1975; his LL.M. from McGill University in 1976; his LL.B. from University of Ottawa in 1978; and his Doctorate in Law from McGill University in 1984. He is a practising member of the Bars of Alberta, Ontario, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
He and his spouse Giovanna Roccamo (a lawyer with Nelligan Power in Ottawa) have a blended family of four: Naomi, 11; Marc, 10; Mélanie, 9; and Morgan, 7.

The Canadian Bar Association is dedicated to improvement in the law and the administration of justice. Some 36,000 lawyers, notaries, law teachers, and law students from across Canada are members.

Contact: Hannah Bernstein, Canadian Bar Association 865 Carling Avenue, Suite 500, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5S8 Tel: (613) 237-2925, E-mail: hannahb@cba.org