Lawyers for Missing Women Inquiry don’t satisfy groups
Posted August 10, 2011 7:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The Robert Pickton inquiry has appointed two independent lawyers to represent aboriginal women and people on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at the commission.
The move is meant to appeal to several groups that have pulled their involvement because the BC government won’t pay for lawyers to represent them at the hearings.
Kasari Govender is with one of the groups that has withdrawn from the inquiry and says this move doesn’t go far enough.
“I want to think that this inquiry is going to be effective for the sake of the families, but the announcement about the amicus, or the independent council, does nothing to reassure me that community voices are going to be any more represented.”
She’s also concerned the lawyers can’t be accountable to community voices because they don’t represent them directly.
“They’re not actually accountable to those 13 groups, in fact, the way it’s set up… They have to be independent from all those groups and independent from the inquiry.”
The two lawyers will work independently of the Commission “with a mandate to serve the public interest at the hearings.” They are expected to take guidance from unfunded participant groups and affected organizations and individuals.
