New community court helps Calgary’s vulnerable citizens

Ben Leung, JD’14, tells a story about a client he had as a defence lawyer. His client had been living on the margins for years. He finally had a moment of clarity where he didn’t want to live like that anymore. He got a job, but because of his previous choices, he knew how to avoid the police and transit authorities due to outstanding warrants. 

To become a productive member of society, he had to step out of the shadows. He then got picked up on the warrant. He was arrested and thrown in jail, and he couldn’t show up for his job, so he was fired. The housing they waited six months to get into was lost because they couldn't pay rent.

Because of this, his willingness to become a meaningful and productive member of society is hindered, and the cycle starts again. 

Addressing challenges that led to the offence

Leung, a lawyer with The City of Calgary, hopes to solve this challenge with Calgary’s new Community Court, an initiative between the City of Calgary’s Community Safety Strategy and Calgary Legal Guidance (CLG) to help the city’s vulnerable population facing bylaw offences. 

“The whole approach to Community Court is that it’s offender-centric,” explains Leung. “An offender will meet with someone from Calgary Legal Guidance to discuss the challenges they’re facing that either directly or indirectly contributed to them committing the offence and helping them address those challenges.”

If someone received a fine and a warrant for not paying the fare on public transit, that offence might have occurred while travelling to a medical appointment. The Community Court team will help the offender meet their basic and immediate needs, such as getting a medical check-up or medication, or even as simple as getting a piece of identification.

“If you come to Community Court and you’re charged with a bylaw offence, you raise your hand and say ‘I’ve got a problem, I have some challenges, and I’d like some help to deal with it.’ The City wants to be there to assist and provide support to vulnerable individuals to address those challenges and to reduce the chance that the person will re-offend,” says Leung.

Drive for change sparked by law school experience

Leung’s drive for establishing Community Court, along with his wife, Edith Thai, JD’15, a lawyer and homeless outreach co-ordinator with CLG, comes from his experience working in UCalgary Law’s Student Legal Assistance (SLA) with former clinic director Justice Michelle Christopher, BA’82.

“Justice Christopher’s attitude was to build things as we needed to fix the problems we faced in the clinic. To just take the first step to get an idea off the ground and to manage the issues and risks along the way.

“That’s sort of the approach we’re taking with the Community Court,” he adds. “Lawyers are meant to be problem-solvers. I’m taking that approach, which Justice Christopher instilled in me, to solve a problem. We have an obligation to society to use laws to improve society.”

Partnerships key for long-term success

As for long-term goals for the Community Court, Leung has big plans.

“Community Court can only be successful with the support of other community organizations, such as physical and mental health providers, affordable housing organizations, food banks, and so on. With that support, our hope is that the community court idea can expand beyond dealing with just the City bylaw matters to address provincial or even federal criminal charges,” he says.

“It just requires people to see that we can solve all the issues as we are dealing with them; we just need to take the first step, jump in the deep end, and swim together.”