From our common law beginnings, the intent of our legal system has always been to find the balance in protecting the rights of individuals with those of the larger community. Simply put: you steal my goat, you pay me or replace my goat.
While crude in many respects, this system brought order, decency, and accountability to the masses. But its simplicity is both a pro and a con. For one thing, it has required us to create additional legislation to clarify unique situations, and this has altered the fundamental balance of our rights. Finding this balance is often at the root of our disagreements over political philosophy—and rightly so, given life’s many complexities.
Many of these legislative adjustments have no doubt been required. But bureaucracy is often the bastard child of well-intentioned charity, and supporting that child is a challenge faced by the government and taxpayers alike as they get entangled in asinine legal webs.
Take rental properties, for example. While common law still reigns in commercial matters, when it comes to rental properties we have the Residential Tenancies Act. I lament this legislation to some extent, but it’s the lack of funding to properly administer it that’s the root of problems faced by both tenants and landlords. I wouldn’t suggest completely reversing it and going back to common law, but the complex webs that have been created in the name of equity and protecting all parties, coupled with overworked civil servants, has led to a system that borders on idiocy and ultimately hurts the people it was intended to serve.
Under common law, if the rent goes unpaid, the landlord can take possession and seize the tenant’s assets. This works well in commercial contracts with savvy parties on both sides, but I would rue the day that a tenant arrives home to find the locks changed and their belongings left on the curb due to a small financial hardship or payment irregularity.
But under the existing system, a tenant who is causing issues, including lack of payment, can continue to live on the premises for months before the landlord can evict them. While the legal process is partially at fault, the judicial system is overburdened; if you were to apply for a hearing today, you might only get a hearing months from now. Little can be accomplished until such a hearing, so an educated tenant can live rent- and fancy-free for months. Add appeals and other delays and it’s possible for a tenant to retain residence for a considerable period of time without pay-ment. For landlords to get paid back rent, they must serve tenants in person—or indeed, tenants may never be found. And for tenants, the nuances of the complex system mean that well-educated landlords can exploit technicalities to their benefit.
Similar dysfunctions plague all aspects of our justice system. Many have fought traffic tickets only to win on appeal because the police officer wasn’t able to attend due to more pressing priorities. And if you plead guilty with an explanation, the justice in front of you will likely cut the fine to remove another file from their overly busy docket.
We need to ask ourselves a simple question: is this a just system?
Can we blame administrators and civil servants? I would think not, since their too-heavy workloads are often the root of the issue. We must instead look to legislators. Although we should commend their intent to create a just and functional society, perhaps they should ensure that the resources needed to administer laws, in terms of time and money, are already in place when those laws are enacted. Doing so would go a long way toward bringing some justice back into our system.
Or maybe, just maybe, we need to ask our political leaders to be more creative in passing legislation, perhaps legislation that can be enacted more cost-effectively, or perhaps even be self-administered.
Fairness is not created in the House of Commons or each province’s legislative assembly. It is created in the way we all choose to live, work, and do business in our collective society.
Simple, right?
