By Judge A.A. Fradsham
Sometimes one is allowed to play to one’s strengths. The email from the ever supportive Ms. Wright of the CBA editorial offices told me that the print edition of Law Matters was being retired in favour of an electronic version. Would I please write one last “View” as part of a retrospective issue? “Of course I will”, I replied. “Retrospective”, meaning “looking or directed backwards”, is probably what I do best. As my long-suffering wife, Gloria, has often told me, “Allan, you were born old.” And your point is...?
As I write this, we are all coming out of stringent lock-down, and are settling into a materially different version of “normal”. A year ago, if I walked into a bank wearing a face mask, security might have been summoned. Today, if I walk into a bank without wearing a face mask, security might be summoned.
A year ago, the people most fastidious about wiping surfaces to eliminate evidence of touching were often those engaged in the break-and-enter vocation. Today, those who expend great effort cleaning away fingerprints are some of our most admired front line workers.
A year ago, if I went two months without a haircut, I looked unkempt and derelict. Today, well, I still look unkempt and derelict, but it is now with a discernible air of self-righteousness.
A year ago, if one picked up one’s possessions from the curb, it usually meant one had been evicted from one’s home. Today, curb side service is a marketing feature. Recently, I placed on an on-line order with a large box store, and received an email telling me to which parking lot I should attend and where I should park. When I arrived there, a sign told me a number to call to announce my presence. A young man hurried out of the store bearing my ordered item, placed it in my vehicle, quickly disappeared, and I drove away. I kept thinking that there was something very familiar about the whole transaction. Then I remembered: it was the same type of procedure described in many of the drug trafficking trials I have heard.
Since work often requires me to venture out of the house in any event, one of our new routines has me taking on the grocery shopping duties. This allows Gloria to reduce her public excursions and resultant exposure. Those advantages outweigh the dangers of me being let loose in the grocery store wandering the chips and snacks aisles unsupervised. Indeed, it is during such wanderings that I have been introduced to the new regime of directional arrows painted on floors and signs indicating where one may stand in the check-our queue. Maybe it comes with my current line of work, but I tend to take rules and directions rather seriously. It would seem that those engaged in other vocations are not similarly inclined. Or perhaps, they are all reincarnated salmon seeking a substitute for swimming upstream to a spawning area. Whatever the cause, their failure to obey the simple directions bespeaks either blind indifference or just general blindness. My immediate annoyance is somewhat assuaged by the realization that if they similarly conduct themselves in the outside world, my employment, and that of my successors, is well secured.
One final, and more meaningful, thought emerges from this somewhat dystopian time in which we find ourselves, and it fits into my assigned theme of reflecting on what we have enjoyed in the past. In the Court in which I sit, from the beginning of this new reality, we have maintained docket courts, bail hearings, in-custody sentencings, in-custody trials, and pre-trial conferences. However, except for the trial matters, often the judge and the clerk sit alone in a courtroom while lawyers and accused persons appear electronically. Though I understand the allure of “pants optional” court appearances, I do anticipate with some affection the return of lawyers, judges, clerks, and the public to the courtroom. All of us in law are engaged in a very human experience; we should firmly resist the siren song of some aspects of “electronic progress” if those new practices reduce us to a collection of disembodied voices and electronic images, exuding as much warmth as a hologram. While a telephone call or even a FaceTime communication may suffice when one is away from home, few would embrace it as a permanent and improved replacement for being there in person... mind you, it does insulate one from tasks such as taking out the garbage.
The Honourable Judge A.A. Fradsham is a Provincial Court Judge with the Criminal Court in Calgary. His column “A View From the Bench” was a highlight in the Canadian Bar Association newsletters for over 15 years.