Core 1..48 Committee

House of Commons CANADA Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development FAAE Ï NUMBER 038 Ï 1st SESSION Ï 39th PARLIAMENT EVIDENCE Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Chair Mr. Kevin Sorenson Also available on the Parliament of Canada Web Site at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 1 Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development Tuesday, January 30, 2007 Ï (0905) Mr. Goodridge, I understand you have a presentation and that [English] afterwards all members of your group will be open to questions from the committee. The Chair (Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC)): Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 38 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, on Welcome. Tuesday, January 30, 2007. Mr. William H. Goodridge (Member, International Develop- I want to take this opportunity to welcome everyone back. I hope ment Committee, Canadian Bar Association): Thank you, Mr. you all had a merry Christmas and enjoyed spending the holiday Chair, and thank you, honourable members. time with family and friends. I want to say a special welcome back to Madame Lalonde, who The Canadian Bar Association is happy to have this opportunity has had a long— today to share our perspective on Canada's support for democratic Some hon. members: Hear, hear! development abroad. I came here today from St. John's, Newfound- land. I'm a member of the international development committee, but The Chair: I can assure you our prayers and our best wishes have I came here specifically to make this presentation before the been with you, Madame. Madame Lalonde has served on this committee at the request of the Canadian Bar Association. committee for a long time and is a very valuable member of this committee, so we do welcome her back. The Chair: Please continue. As your chair, I also want to extend a welcome to the new members on the foreign affairs and international development Mr. William H. Goodridge: As most of you know, we're a committee. It's good to have new members coming in. I can say with national organization. We represent approximately 37,000 members. a degree of pride that this committee has always had a very good Our members are lawyers, judges, Quebec notaries, and legal working relationship with all members of all parties. We've tried in academics across Canada. We have had considerable expertise in the past many years to work within a consensus, and I think our international development. work has shown that. Since 1990, the Canadian Bar Association has delivered legal and We're continuing our study on democratic development. This is justice reform and capacity-building projects in 29 countries, the committee's major study on Canada's role in international support including across Asia, Africa, Central Europe, and the Caribbean. for democratic development around the world. Next week our In all of these projects we bring our commitment of access to justice committee will travel to Washington and New York in furtherance of through the values of an independent legal profession, an impartial our study. We hope to dovetail on our trip last fall to Oslo and other judiciary, the rule of law, and the dignity of the individual. European destinations. Our committee endures a fairly gruelling schedule when we come back in, yet I'm certain we all place a high value on what we see, learn, and experience on these travels and as There are many reasons why Canada should have an interest in we gather here as a committee. promoting democracy abroad: greater economic opportunities, strategic foreign policy interests, and even strengthened national In our first hour today we will hear from the Canadian Bar security. But from our perspective, the most important reason for Association. We have with us Robin Sully, director of international Canada to support democracy is to advance development—that is, development; John Hoyles, chief executive officer; and William reduce poverty and hunger, uphold basic human rights, improve Goodridge, member of the international development committee. We health and safety, and protect the environment. welcome you this morning. As you know, this is the first meeting back since our break. Of the many questions you've put forth, we are going to focus on Hopefully your testimony this morning will help us in our study as three questions today: the appropriate nature of Canada's support for we learn more about the importance of the rule of law and the best democratic development, lessons from experiences in supporting practices in promoting the rule of law. We welcome you this morning democratic development, and whether Canada can and should do and we look forward to your presentation. more. 2 FAAE-38 January 30, 2007 On the nature of Canada's support, our main message is that the to build capacity of their law societies so that they could engage, best way to promote democracy abroad is to promote good among others things, in more effective advocacy for law reform. governance. A critical component of that is the rule of law. Without rule of law, a democracy is simply not sustainable. The two concepts are inextricably linked, and a country cannot improve its fate over The Canadian Bar Association's regional capacity development the long term without good governance. workshops drew together participants from east Africa and southern So what is good governance? It has many characteristics. It has Africa partners. By bringing our partners together, they were able to special values, rules, and, perhaps most importantly, institutions that share experiences, learning from each other as they learned from make decisions and exercise power. Good governance is participa- Canadians, and as we learned also from them. Through these tory, responsive to the citizens, transparent, accountable, fair, and workshops, the Canadian Bar Association has facilitated the efficient. There are many adjectives, but all are important to the development of relationships that have led to continued collaboration concept. among these African law societies. The regional approach gives them a stronger voice than could be achieved individually. The value of democracy is that it is the best form of government that embodies all of these characteristics, but on its own, democracy is not enough to create good governance. We can look at many In 2005 the law societies of east Africa and southern Africa joined examples around the world where they have had free and fair together in this collaboration and supported the Law Society of elections but lack good governance, and have not magically Zimbabwe in making a complaint under the African Charter of improved from an overall development point of view despite the Human and People's Rights. The complaint was against amendments free election. to Zimbabwe's constitution that violated the right of equal protection A democracy can't be effective without rule of law. For example, of law and the right of freedom of movement. Specifically, in that how free or fair can an election be if electoral rules are not applied case it was a law that allowed confiscation of passports by residents fairly, equally, and consistently; if the voting is not publicly of Zimbabwe. available; or if electoral disputes are not resolved by independent courts and judges? So in its most basic form, the rule of law means that everyone is subject to the same law—government officials, The second lesson the Canadian Bar Association has learned is legislators, judges, businesses, and private individuals. But it also that we cannot assume that one model will work best. There are means that the government is bound by the law. All government many models of legal and justice systems, and different models may action must be authorized by that law. The rule of law means that the work in different places at different times. For example, in most laws are clear, consistent, stable, and applied fairly and equally countries, including Canada, the vast majority of people only ever without cronyism, corruption, and patronage. use the formal justice system at the lower court level, the entry level. In fact, most people usually avoid courts completely and use other With this perspective in mind I'll move to the second question types of dispute resolution. Paradoxically, at present the majority of we'd like to address: lessons learned from experiences in supporting Canada's aid aimed at improving justice systems goes into the democratic development. In our written submission we have listed supreme courts, the law ministries, and other places that actually some of the lessons the Canadian Bar Association has learned in the have little impact on the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged. field as an implementer of legal and judicial reform projects, so this morning I'll just discuss a few examples. The report has more details. Ï (0910) The third lesson the Canadian Bar Association has learned is that the reform cannot be successful without champions in the country. In The first experience—Wherever we have worked we needed local some cases, the best approach is from the top—that is, through engagement and ownership to be effective. Canada must support strong political commitment and working with the government and programs that are responsive to local needs and have local the related government institutions. In other cases, civil society ownership. In our view, without these features the programs are organizations or bottom-up organizations is the better starting point. likely to fail. Local stakeholders must be involved also in the But in the long term, neither strategy can be successful without planning, the implementation, and the monitoring of the programs. engaging the whole range of actors.

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