A8 Sunday, April 24, 2011 - The Morning Star
www.vernonmorningstar.com
Opinion Nathan Weathington – Publisher Glenn Mitchell – Managing Editor
Justice is a major issue
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The North Okanagan’s Community Newspaper Published Sunday, Wednesday, Friday The Morning Star, founded in 1988 as an independent community newspaper, is published each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, selfaddressed envelope. ENTIRE CONTENTS © 1988 MORNING STAR PUBLICATIONS LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Managing Editor
Glenn Mitchell 250-550-7920
Happy Easter, I think
I
f it seems like everything’s coming up late this year, that’s only because it is. As we wait for spring to show for real, six weeks after it appeared on the calendar, it sure seems like Easter took its sweet time to get here (especially seeing how our last statutory holiday was Jan. 1, are you listening Premier Christy Clark?). And after 15 seconds of research on the Web I’ve discovered that Easter Sunday is indeed only one day earlier than the last possible date it could be. Don’t ask what Website that was though, because that would’ve taken 16.5 seconds of research and I’m facing an early deadline due to the holiday, but I’m Glenn Mitchell pretty sure it’s right. According to this Website the following is true: “Easter Sunday is the Sunday immediately following the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox, unless that coincides with the Jewish Feast of Passover, in which case it is moved to the next Sunday. It can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25.” OK, if you must know I think it’s About.com. There, don’t say I don’t do the research or give credit when credit is due. I think I’ve looked up this information before, and even shared it with readers before, but I keep forgetting because a revolving statutory holiday is a strange and wonderful thing. Plus I can just look at the calendar every year to find out when it is – it’s just the truly curious who want to know why, or those who need to fill a space in the paper for Easter Sunday. But then can you always trust your calendar? Or some Website you’ve never heard of before for that matter? I remember a few years ago I bought a calender off a fellow employee for one of his kid’s fundraisers. You know, I try to do my part and at least I can use a calendar, unlike many other fundraising purchases. Anyway I promptly put it on my wall, having no reason to think it wasn’t like any other calendar
MITCHELL’S MUSINGS
Sales Manager Alan Tomiak 250-550-7927
Circulation Manager Tammy Stelmachowich 250-550-7901 Creative Co-ordinator Michelle Snelgrove Accounts Manager Brenda Burgess Classified Supervisor Carol Williment 250-550-7900 Editorial Staff Cory Bialecki Cara Brady Graeme Corbett Kristin Froneman Roger Knox Kevin Mitchell Katherine Mortimer Richard Rolke Jennifer Smith
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that I’ve purchased and put blind faith in, including telling me when to tell the world when daylight saving time begins (which changed a couple years ago throwing my clock radio totally out of whack). Well, the calendar in question didn’t have any trouble with the sometimes tricky launch of daylight saving time (hello Saskatchewan) but when I turned the page to March there was definitely something amiss. According to this particular minor hockey calendar there were only 30 days in the great month of March. Now I hadn’t received any press releases informing me of this possible fact, plus I had a bit of an inside track seeing how my birthday was on March 31 (which if this new bit of information were true would make me an April fool for goodness sake, not that there’s anything wrong with such a birthday, ahem), so I was highly suspicious that my trusty calendar may have benefitted charity but was now of no value to yours truly. Sure enough I flipped ahead to see it also had only 30 days in July and August as well. I then confidently declared the calendar makers were either incompetent or Mayan, or both, neither of which helped my situation, and tossed it in the recycling and went back to my trusty realtor’s calendar, which was free by the way. And what information to trust is even more of a tricky situation these days, what with so many sources on the World Wide Web, plus a plethora of TV channels, apps, etc. etc. Not to mention if you’re actually following the federal political campaign, ahem. Possible coalitions, and even separatism and crime rates, seem like phoney issues to me, the parties’ stances will change if they happen to gain power and then try to hold onto it, once again. Who do you trust, indeed? And then just this week I read in the paper that John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley travelogue has been debunked as mostly fiction, if not all fiction. Even his sons and a Steinbeck biographer tend to agree with this latest revelation about one of America’s greatest writers. Obviously he should’ve just stayed on the fiction side of the library. Heavy sigh. Oh well, try to have a happy Easter anyway. If it actually is Easter, that is.
There’s no shortage of hotbutton issues clamouring for government attention as a possible provincial election looms. But there’s an even bigger elephant in the room. B.C.’s legal system is in big trouble. Funding cuts dating back to 2003 have reduced the number of sitting judges, fuelling a trial backlog that increasingly lets criminals go free because of unconstitutional delays. The result? More than 2,100 cases are now at risk of being tossed out of court due to waits that threaten to violate the accused’s right to be tried within a reasonable time. Savvy defence lawyers are exploiting the dysfunction in the system to their advantage. Accused criminals – some charged with serious crimes – are getting away without having to face their victims or be accountable for their actions. The considerable efforts of police officers are being wasted, not to mention the taxpayer money used to pay them for investigations, forensic work and testimony that are all for naught once the suspect walks. But perhaps the hardest hit are the victims – regular people impacted by crime who have no choice but to rely on a deteriorating legal system for relief. The verdict on the possibility of a quick fix is grim. But aside from health care, one would be hard-pressed to identify an issue that cuts across all walks of life and has, directly or indirectly, affected nearly everyone. If Premier Christy Clark is serious about her “Putting Families First” platform, fixing B.C.’s debilitated justice system must be among her top priorities. —Surrey Leader/Black Press