In the first week of June, 2020, R v Sullivan and R v Chan were decided by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The judgement impacted a very narrow yet important area of the criminal law. The press coverage subsequently blew its impact out of proportion and created a panic on social media.
I myself wrote a short summary on Facebook that summarized the facts of the case and clarified what the judgement did, and why the news coverage was dangerously inaccurate.
Within two days the post had been shared over 900 times. Another, longer explanatory post by a law student had been shared nearly 10,000 times. After this I realized that there was a serious appetite for timely explanations of court cases that are accessible to the average person. Not only that, the media could not always be trusted to do so because in today’s world there is always an incentive to sensationalize headlines for shares and clicks.
Also, as Elsa Ascencio said so well on twitter, it is on us, the legal community, to step up and reach out to the community and explain when a case might be controversial or confusing. Furthermore, we must do so in a way that is sensitive and accessible. That is what I hope to accomplish with this blog, to become a trustworthy source that acts as a gateway into the legal world written for all communities, not just the legal community. I’d like to thank other major source of inspiration including Sara Little’s Little Legal Summaries, as well as the Café Bioethics initiative founded by bioethicist Nipa Chauhan, who are both also doing great work in delivering public education.
You can find my own summary of R v Sullivan, and the inaugural post of this blog, here.
Weinstein Law Blog 