Chief Justice Robert Bauman – The Justice Hack – Voices of Justice Magazine 2021

#VOICESOFJUSTICE 

THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BAUMAN 

#VOICESOFJUSTICE

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERT BAUMAN

WE ARE REALLY THE TAIL IN THIS 

WHOLE PROCESS, AND WE SHOULDN’T 

BE WAGGING THE DOG 

The Honourable Robert Bauman is Chief Justice of British Columbia, 

the British Columbia Court of Appeal and Court of Appeal of Yukon. 

What is Access to Justice BC, why did it start and what are its goals? 

It’s really created a platform of people interested in justice issues 

across the spectrum. It includes lawyers and judges, and other leaders 

of the legal profession. It also includes representatives from the 

Ministry of Attorney General, members of the public, lay litigants who 

would represent themselves in proceedings, business people from the 

chamber of commerce, notaries, elected politicians, and representatives 

of First Nations and local governments. 

It’s a tremendously broad section of the greater public in British 

Columbia. And really, that’s what’s critical to the movement – the fact 

that it is widely based and welcoming of all different points of view and 

perspectives. In this type of social issue where we’re trying to galvanize 

a movement towards some meaningful solutions, it seems to me the 

broader the tent, the better. And so we’ve been getting larger and larger 

and larger, and I suspect that’s what we’ll continue to do. 

It’s created this forum in which all these various people with competing 

interests and complimentary interests can come together and discuss 

ways of addressing what is indeed a crisis in our country, and that is 

the ability of citizens to access the justice system in a meaningful way: 

knowing your legal rights and being able to exercise them. 

#VOICESOFJUSTICE

What has been the impact of Access to 

Justice BC’s Triple Aim, and what are 

some projects that may have followed the 

Triple Aim template? 

The Triple Aim is a reflection of my belief 

that words matter, and common vision 

matters. It’s easy to be cynical and say, 

“Well, those are just words. That’s the 

vision, where’s the reality?” And we hear 

that, but the fact is that a common vision, 

which people can rally around, is an 

extremely important concept, an extremely 

important development and extremely 

important accomplishment. That’s what the 

Triple Aim is. It’s something that over 50 

justice organizations and individuals have 

subscribed to as being a common vision of 

ways of improving the system and what we 

want to see in a justice system. 

A lot of our progress so far has been 

consciousness raising, momentum building. 

We haven’t resolved the access to justice 

challenge in British Columbia and Canada by 

any means. Some would say we’re not being 

very quick and doing so at all. I hear that, 

but the fact is, we built I think a momentum 

in this province around a vision for action in 

this area. We’ve also created measurement 

techniques for determining if we are 

making progress. It provides for common 

measurement, which, of course, is critical, 

so that we’re always comparing apples and 

apples. 

What is the significance of Access to 

Justice BC’s four pillars (being usercentred, 

collaborative, experimental and 

evidence-based)? 

They really say it all. I think the usercentred 

aspect of our vision is probably the 

most important, because it takes away the 

traditional view that judges and lawyers are 

what matter in this system, and therein lies 

the hope for reform. It turns that on its head, 

as it should be, to concentrate on who we’re 

all working for, and that is the people who 

use our system. And to the extent our system 

isn’t comfortable for those who use it, we 

failed; isn’t accessible for those who use it, 

we failed. 

Evidence-based is important. Experimental 

also is a critical core for me. That is a 

willingness to say to ourselves, “Our 

existing efforts are wanting, they are not 

answering the challenge, at least in the 21st 

century.” We have to be prepared to test 

new initiatives, we have to be willing to 

open ourselves up to experimenting in areas 

where our innate conservatism is challenged. 

I’m as conservative as anybody else in this 

profession. I value the oldest institutions 

as much as anybody else does. But I also 

recognize that unless we are open to new 

ideas – and some of them will be radical and 

disruptive – we’re bound to simply repeat 

our mistakes in the past. 

What do you think is the most important 

next step for the profession in terms of 

increasing access to justice? 

I think awareness of the problem is step one. 

Everyone knows that there is a problem. 

A willingness to be part of the solution, 

as opposed to simply acknowledging the 

problem and moving on to our daily lives, 

comes next. There are lots of comfortable 

pews in the legal profession where you can 

practice your entire life without worrying 

about any of these problems. 

But the fact is, I think lawyers are generally 

starting to become aware of the problem, 

and willing to become part of the solution. A 

willingness to try something new is critical. 

Disruptors prompt our imagination – the 

people who say, “Why not? Or what if?” as 

opposed to, “That’s not the way we do things.”

I’ve seen leadership in this area coming from 

major firms. Without being cynical, they 

know that it’s in their interest to get involved 

in this area. I’m seeing major firms taking an 

active interest in the new legal landscape, 

and a leadership interest in that area. And 

that’s great, because they’ve got the resources, 

and frankly, they’ve got the talent to be 

leaders in this area, and they’re stepping up. 

The Court of Appeal has itself been innovative 

and disruptive in this area. Why 

was change important and what allowed 

change to happen quickly? 

We’re a really radical bunch here! But seriously, 

it was kind of a no-brainer. Necessity 

breeds innovation, and we certainly had 

necessity in March when everything shut 

down. So necessity prompted us to do things 

we might not normally do. 

Our rota is tremendously manageable, and 

for the most part, we do not hear evidence. 

We simply don’t face the challenges the trial 

courts do in that regard. That allowed us to 

pivot relatively quickly. I credit my colleagues 

with being flexible, and resilient. They’ve risen 

to the occasion, to the challenges we face 

with a truly electronic record. And believe 

me, there are some challenges there. 

Has your idea of justice changed over the 

past five years since Access to Justice BC 

began its work? 

It has. I think the most important thing is to 

think about who’s at the centre of all this, 

and when you start thinking that way, all of 

a sudden, we become less important, unfortunately. 

We are really the tail in this whole 

process, and we shouldn’t be wagging the 

dog. The courtroom is the last place that we 

end up in the system. And in many ways, at 

times it can be perceived to be a failure to 

end up in the courtroom. In the development 

of jurisprudence and important legal principles, 

the courtroom is not a failure. But 

for ordinary citizens, they may be forgiven 

for thinking they failed when they end up in 

court. 

So a concept of justice being much broader 

than the courtroom – and including understanding 

and knowing your legal rights, 

knowing when you have a legal issue, and 

an ability to understand its ramifications as 

a citizen – is what I’m talking about when I 

talk about access to justice. I see the judicial 

branch, which I have the privilege of leading 

in British Columbia, as being not the end part 

of the problem, but rather, I see us as being 

part of the leadership group that gets involved 

from the very beginning of the access 

issue. That makes us not only relevant, but 

more relevant, perhaps, to the whole issue 

than we’ve ever imagined ourselves. 

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT 

THERE IS A PROBLEM. 

A WILLINGNESS TO BE 

PART OF THE SOLUTION, 

AS OPPOSED TO SIMPLY 

ACKNOWLEDGING THE 

PROBLEM AND MOVING 

ON TO OUR DAILY LIVES, 

COMES NEXT 

#VOICESOFJUSTICE

Chief Justice Robert Bauman – The Justice Hack – Voices of Justice Magazine 2021

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