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Pages WEST VANCOUVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY March 1995 FEATURE PRESENTATION REPORT Reg Grandison on ‘‘The Justice System in Your Life 99 By: Anne Vernon The Guest Speaker at our last meeting was Provincial Court Judge Reg Grandison. He has served on the bench in West Vancouver since his appointment as a Provincial Court Judge in 1978. Bom in Trail, B.C., Grandson served with the RCMP before taking up law studies at UBC. He graduated in 1969 and had a private practice in Vancouver in criminal and family law until his appointment in 1978.. He has lived in West Vancouver for the past 17 years and has been involved in many West Vancouver community activities during his years on the bench. He was assisted in his presentation by Jane Baynham, Immediate Past Chair of the Family Court and Justice Committee. Grandison introduced his subject with a reference to the perennial dispute as to whether it was Captain Vancouver or the Spanish navigator Piloto Jose Maria Narvaez who discovered West Vancouver’s shores. In 1941 the Lions Club, hoping to settle the dispute for aU time, put up a monument to Narvaez and held a parade to celebrate the occasion. However holding a parade and erecting a cairn did not receive general acceptance as a reasonable approach to settling disputes and regretfully we have had to resort to the unhappy alternative of our present court system. Early justice throughout B.C. was dispensed by Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie, the forerunner of law enforcement in British Columbia. Known as the ‘Hanging Judge’, he brought a personal approach to dispensing justice that was probably appropriate to conditions at the time though his nickname is thought to be undeserved. On December 23,1913 the first Magistrate was appointed to sit in West Vancouver - Arthur J.C. Mellish. Judge Mellish, a man of few words, frequently did not appear to pronounce the accused guilty but simply fined or imprisoned him or her. Eventually a decision of his was challenged on this point by a defense attorney named Robson who won his appeal and actually took over his job of Magistrate three months later. Judge Robson sat on the bench in West Vancouver until 1962 when he was replaced by Judge Albert Watts who served until 1977. Judge Watts, a very learned scholar, has written an excellent book on the history of British Columbia’s Provincial Courts. The present Courts sit three days a week and the workload is growing all the time. In November 1994 there were six trials a day but that increased in December. Judge Grandison explained some of the differences in sentencing which range from conditional discharge in minor cases to fines or imprisonment. Judges consider very carefully the background to the cases which appear before them - the accused’s previous behaviour, possible criminal record, etc. In minor cases especially it is important to decide what type of sentence will best serve both accused and the general public. There is also the fact that the follow-up systems in practise today often reduce the sentence which has been given and, in fact, it is possible that some prisoners are allocated a day pass out of the prison on the very first day they arrive! Judge Grandison made it clear that he was very cautious when discussing the present justice system. He is aware, as are many other Judges, that the general public are expressing their unease with what is happening today. However he made it plain that we, the public, have the responsibility of making the necessary changes Provincial Court Judge Reg D. Grandison and that we have the freedom to address our misgivings to the highest authority and must indeed do so to see changes happen. Jane Baynham then spoke about youth in the Court system. The Young Offenders Act is in place to protect the young and its main goal is to rehabilitate. In West Vancouver we presently have about half the number of young offenders which we had five years ago. She did say that violent crimes seem to be more violent than before, but we do have good things in place in West Vancouver. The outreach progranune has 2.5 full time positions and a drug and alcohol abuse worker goes regularly to the high schools to run prevention programmes with some success. The Family Court and Justice Conunittee have a Court Watch Committee and a member is always present in court when a youth is charged and stays with him/her until he/she is processed through the system. Because of the overload of work twenty people took more than one year to be processed last year. A lot of the youngsters are under the influence of drugs when they get into trouble and drugs are the greatest problem here. Judge Grandison told us that crime in West Vancouver varies from shoplifting to murder but that the greatest problem is that most drug addicts who come before him are unemployed males who need one or two shots a day every day of the year. This habit probably costs them $100 a day and a common recourse is to steal. To raise enough money they must steal $500 to $1000 a day. However both Judge Grandison and Jane Baynham consider that the crime level in West Vancouver is not as serious a community problem as the media represents, nor is it increasing as rapidly as public perception appears to indicate.