Bar organizations are warning Ottawa that a new penalty regime to be applied to legal professionals — featuring penalties of up to $1.5 million for immigration and refugee lawyers determined by federal officials to have participated in clients’ misrepresentations — will be constitutionally challenged if lawyers are not exempted from the proposed regulations, which are expected to come into force later this year.
The proposed regulations prohibit a legal professional, who represents or advises someone for payment, from misrepresenting or withholding information, advising them to misrepresent or withhold information, or communicating misleading information.
The new administrative penalties regime would apply to the country’s approximately 12,000 immigration consultants and to all immigration lawyers.
The Canadian Bar Association, the law societies of Ontario, B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA), and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) wrote to Immigration Canada objecting to applying the proposed penalty regime to legal professionals.
The Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association says “the proposed regulations would be unconstitutional and illegal in their application to lawyers.”.
The baseline penalties for the two types of violations are significant: $15,000 for misrepresentation and $5,000 for representation or advice without authorization.
Consequences for those found to have violated the regulations would include Immigration Canada publishing on its website their names and business information, as well as the nature of the violation(s) and the penalties imposed
Going after lawyers who lie? That seems like a wide net.
No it’s not.
The proposed regulations prohibit a legal professional, who represents or advises someone for payment, from misrepresenting or withholding information, advising them to misrepresent or withhold information, or communicating misleading information.
This is dystopian as fuck and is another unnecessary attempt to crack down on immigrants.
Let me reword your quote…
The proposed regulations prohibit a paid lawyer from: -Misrepresenting or withholding information -Advising client to misrepresent or to withhold information -or communicating misleading information
So in simpler words Paid lawyer is prohibited from misleading or lying, or presenting lies or advising others to lie.
Now the context of your quote has been omitted which allows this to be taken different ways. If a cop is asking you questions, then you can lie Cop-“did you kill the guy” lawyer should advise a client to say “no” even though the client did. People have the right to not self incriminate.
In a court room under oath the lawyer shouldn’t be entering false evidence. Evidence which muddies the water sure. But not straight out lies.
So, in your view, it’s a dystopia when people are prevented from lying to the court?
What’s a utiopia then?
I, for one, think the world would be a better place if perjury charges were taken a lot more seriously. For a lawyer, perjury should be career-ending.
The justice system only works if it operates on facts. If either side is not being honest about those facts, things break down.
I’ve heard that, at least in the US, this is especially bad when it comes to immigration. Lawyers coach their clients on exactly what to say so that they can get refugee status, even if they’re really just economic migrants. This is unfair to real refugees, unfair to people immigrating legally, and to society in general.
OTOH, you have to be careful about how something like this is managed. If the government is too free to discipline and fine lawyers, you can end up in a situation like you have down south, where law firms that dared to represent the other side are being destroyed by the government.
Among the legal organizations’ expressed objections and flaws they contend mar the proposed regime in its application to legal professionals:
- IRCC’s proposed broad powers to inspect and search, based on an IRCC officer’s determination that there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” a violation, and to demand documents from lawyers, without safeguards, as well as the lack of any mechanism to allow lawyers to fully and effectively defend themselves, without breaching established principles of solicitor-client confidentiality;
- unfairness, expense and other negative impacts on legal professionals, and the risk of inconsistent results by needlessly subjecting them to dual regulation;
- failure to respect the fundamental principles of independence of the bar as well as solicitor/client privilege/confidentiality, which are protected by the common law and the Constitution;
- the lack of procedural protections and accountability;
- IRCC’s lack of neutrality vis-à-vis immigration and refugee lawyers who advocate for clients, often in opposition to IRCC and its counsel, including representing in court those accused of offences, including misrepresentation. “Granting the same entity the authority to discipline the very lawyers who challenge it creates a glaring conflict of interest — comparable to allowing Crown counsel to oversee the discipline of criminal defence lawyers,” the CBA asserts in its submission to IRCC; and
- Ottawa exceeds federal jurisdiction by purporting to regulate and penalize lawyers and paralegals doing paid immigration and refugee work, including by naming violators and publishing particulars on IRCC’s website, an interference with a lawyer’s ability to practise law, which is the exclusive preserve of law societies.
