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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
Not necessarily replying to you specifically, just these types of posts in general.
A friend of mine is a pretty hardcore Christian, who just also happens to be a lawyer. Despite his personal beliefs about gays and whatnot, he still managed to successfully argue for a gay client who was discriminated against at work and won the case. All despite his own beliefs. Sure, it may be an isolated case of a religious person taking a case that goes against their own feelings, but I've a feeling it's not.
Also, keep in mind that just because you become a lawyer, it doesn't mean you'll only be in court fighting for LGBT rights; you can become a patents lawyer or notary or a thousand other specialists where your beliefs have absolutely no impact on your work life.
Nobody is saying Christians aren't capable, willing, or motivated to represent gay clients to the best of their ability. In fact, a common exercise in law school is to present someone with a particular problem, and then have the student argue against his/her own personal viewpoint. The problem here is a systemic discriminatory policy that is contrary to the very essence of what a lawyer is. Whether he/she represents corporations, straight clients, gay clients, transgender clients, or whatever else, is irrelevant.
I'm talking about Christians in general, and the school specifically, being discriminated against because of their beliefs. The general implication being stated HERE by some of you is that you think those identifying themselves as Christian will be incapable of performing duties as lawyers, simply because of their beliefs - how is that not discrimination and prejudice?
Wow this statement completely misses the point.
Although, now that you've brought it up... NO. Absolutely no one is saying that Christians cannot be good lawyers.
I have friends at UBC who are devout Christians and they have friends that are LGBT, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. I have met successful lawyers who are Christian.
Christians (and everyone else) are free to identify themselves as such if they go to any other law school in Canada. There is nothing wrong with being Christian. What's wrong is when someone acts in a discriminatory manner to others. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld LGBT's right to equality and what TWU is doing is forcing them back into the closet so to speak.
Public interest should not matter. It's a private school. If UBC or SFU decided to have a covenant like this THEN I would completely disagree with it. But it's TWU. A long standing Christian University.
This is the most retarded shit I've ever heard. No wonder Atheists hate religious people and religious people hate each other. So let's say I started a new religion that promoted Asian superiority and that women should not be schooled and should stay at home to cook and clean, and THEN I open a university that openly bans women and people not of Asian decent. Would you be OK with that? Would you say "oh it's a private school, let them do what they want"?
Where do you draw the line? Heck I don't even think religious schools should be allowed. Just as the church and state is separated, I would argue schooling is a part of the state and thus should be separate as well. Just as I wouldn't discriminate against a christian from entering any type of school, I would expect the same tolerance even from a Christian school. If UBC tomorrow decided to ban anyone who practiced religion, or wore any religious symbols, you would all be up in arms, but it's ok to do it under the guise of religion?
Ontario’s law society has refused to accredit a new law school at a faith-based university over a policy prohibiting same-sex intimacy that some say is discriminatory.
...
“I cannot vote to accredit a law school which seeks to control students in their bedrooms,” bencher Howard Goldblatt said.
LSUC is the biggest law society in Canada and their decision should be influential on the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society meeting tomorrow and the special meeting again here in BC.
TWU got conditional approval from the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society. 10 voted to accredit conditionally and 9 voted not to accredit. The condition is that TWU must remove the discriminatory part of their Community Covenant.
Let us see if TWU decides to stick with its discriminatory stance in the face of the recent decisions by the LSUC and the NSBS.
High street lawyers to get formal training in Islamic Sharia law
A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an 'introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms'
By Christopher Hope, Senior Political Correspondent
9:00PM BST 26 Apr 2014
High street lawyers are being offered formal training in Islamic Sharia Law by the professional body which represents solicitors, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.
A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an “introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms”.
Critics said the fact that the Law Society was offering training in Sharia law created the “perception” that it was now “a legal discipline”.
It comes after the Society controversially published guidance last month to allow high street solicitors to draw up Sharia-compliant wills.
On Monday around 100 anti-Sharia law campaigners are expected to protest outside the Society’s head office in the heart of London’s legal establisment.
Sharia law is Islam’s legal system. It derives from the Koran and the Hadiths, the sayings and customs attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, as well as fatwas - the rulings of Islamic scholars.
Currently, Sharia principles are not formally addressed by or included in Britain’s laws. However, a network of Sharia courts has grown up in Islamic communities to deal with disputes between Muslim families.
There are reported to be around 85 such courts in the UK – however campaigners say there could be far more.
The Sharia Law event at the Law Society’s headquarters on Chancery Lane, central London on June 24 has already sold out.
It offers training in Sharia law covering wills and inheritance, family and children and corporate and commercial law.
The course is billed as “a forerunner to a planned future seminar series on Islamic law”, the Law Society said.
The Society said: “This event will set you thinking on an important area of client service as our expert and authoritative speakers highlight some basic concepts and requirements of the Islamic Sharia applicable to these practice areas.”
Solicitors have to undertake 16 hours of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training every year in disciplines such as competition or corporate law.
The Sharia course counts for one and a half hours of this CPD training, which critics said meant that it “creates the perception that Sharia law is a legal discipline”.
Charlie Klendjian, a spokesman from the Lawyers’ Secular Society said: “It creates an ever increasing perception to the public and also to the legal profession that Sharia law is a legal discipline.
“Sharia law is not a legal discipline, it is theology and we can’t constantly keep giving it this credibility and it is certainly not for the Law Society to be doing that.
“It is damaging to the perception of the primacy of English law, and that is what the Law Society don’t appreciate.”
There is increasing concern about by the use of Sharia Law in communities in the UK – last week a campaign called ShariaWatch was launched to monitor its spread.
There were unsubstantiated claims at its launch in the House of Lords that MPs and peers were afraid to speak out about Sharia Law because of the fear of reprisals.
Baroness Cox, a campaigning cross-bench peer who hosted the launch, said the Law Society’s encouragement for Sharia law was “disturbing”.
She said: “While every citizen in this country is free to practice their religion, it is deeply disturbing that an organisation as prestigious as the Law Society appears to be encouraging the implementation of Sharia Law.”
Islamic law was “often inherently discriminatory against women”, including in the way women were treated in divorce and inheritance cases, she said.
Lady Cox added: “Muslim women have claimed they feel ‘betrayed’ by Britain: they came here to escape Sharia law and they find the situation worse here than in the countries they came from.”
A Law Society spokesman said: “We hold hundreds of CPD events every year, on topics ranging from legal aid to being a happy LGB [Lesbian, Gay, Bisxexual] lawyer. That does not make these topics all legal disciplines.
“Our CPD programme is a process of continuous learning to maintain and further develop solicitors’ competence and performance across a range of subjects. Our CPD events help lawyers better serve their clients, whatever their background.”
The Society said it had held four events on Islamic Law between 2004 and 2006, although Sharia Law was not mentioned in the titles of these events.
This reminds me of Bill Maher last night (from 2m20s onwards):
i don't fucking get it man. lawyers are just professionals that understand the lingo and the system better than you do. and they're there to represent you cuz you're too fucking stupid to represent yourself in their game of legal jargon.
at the end it's always up to the judge or jury right? i mean... so who the fuck cares who represents you. the legal system shouldn't care. it still has to pass through the final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral.
i don't fucking get it man. lawyers are just professionals that understand the lingo and the system better than you do. and they're there to represent you cuz you're too fucking stupid to represent yourself in their game of legal jargon.
at the end it's always up to the judge or jury right? i mean... so who the fuck cares who represents you. the legal system shouldn't care. it still has to pass through the final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral.
The "final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral" decides based on the arguments the lawyer representing you make. Once again, this isn't about "Christian" lawyers being incompetent to represent certain people. It's about the TWU law discriminating against certain types of Canadians and being incompatible with the requirements/values of the law society.
Since most appointed judges spent much of their early career's as lawyers, wouldn't the possibility of appointing a TWU lawyer as a judge put a key tenent of our justice system (blind justice) into question?
^I saw a small blurb in the metro that TWU isn't recognized anymore? I guess i'm missing something?
Yup, nothing said it wasn't recognized any more. In a nut shell, they want to be recognized which was what the BC law society did, accredit them. This is now being challenged.
Go back and read the OP. The last paragraph of the quoted article says TWU would have it's first class start in 2016, therefore, no student is currently effected by this.
Last edited by van_city23; 04-27-2014 at 02:21 PM.
i don't fucking get it man. lawyers are just professionals that understand the lingo and the system better than you do. and they're there to represent you cuz you're too fucking stupid to represent yourself in their game of legal jargon.
at the end it's always up to the judge or jury right? i mean... so who the fuck cares who represents you. the legal system shouldn't care. it still has to pass through the final decider who is supposed to be completely neutral.
If that were true some lawyers wouldn't be changing many times more than other lawyers.
__________________ 1991 Toyota Celica GTFour RC // 2007 Toyota Rav4 V6 // 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee
1992 Toyota Celica GT-S ["sold"] \\ 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD [sold] \\ 2000 Jeep Cherokee [sold] \\ 1997 Honda Prelude [sold] \\ 1992 Jeep YJ [sold/crashed] \\ 1987 Mazda RX-7 [sold] \\ 1987 Toyota Celica GT-S [crushed]
Quote:
Originally Posted by maksimizer
half those dudes are hotter than ,my GF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevYouUp
reading this thread is like waiting for goku to charge up a spirit bomb in dragon ball z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good_KarMa
OH thank god. I thought u had sex with my wife. :cry:
Special general meeting of the Law Society of BC is tomorrow. Hard to say how the vote will go. Most/all of the lawyers at my firm are voting against accreditation.
I was there today. It was a pretty large turnout. You could definitely get a feel for the crowd, the vast majority were in favour of the resolution (against TWU). Before the vote went down, they had an opportunity for speakers on both sides of the vote to speak and voice their opinions and views on the subject.
Thousands of B.C. lawyers have voted for a non-binding resolution to reverse the Law Society's April decision to accredit Trinity Western University's new Christian law school.
The resolution directs the Board of Governors, known as Benchers, to declare that TWU's law school is not an approved faculty of law for the purposes of the Law Society’s admissions program.
Of the B.C. Law Society's 13,000 members, 3,210 voted in favour with 968 opposed. However, the resolution is not binding, so does not automatically reverse the existing decision to accredit the law school.
"The decision regarding whether to admit graduates from the proposed law school at TWU is a Bencher decision," said President Jan Lindsay, QC.
"However, the Benchers will give the result of today’s members' meeting serious and thoughtful consideration."
The first is to respect the wishes of the majority of B.C. lawyers who voted this past spring to call on benchers to reverse their decision to accredit the faith-based law school.
The second is to put the issue to another vote — this one binding — to all the society's members.
The third is to wait for the courts to rule on the university's legal challenge of decisions in Ontario and Nova Scotia to refuse to recognize the law school's future graduates.
for anyone interested, I think the following link takes you to the live stream...
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