hear2sides

3 Woke Male Benchers Help Cancel Female Lawyer of Colour

Shahdin Farsai’s banned critique of Practice Directive 59.

It all started here with a critique of Practice Directive 59 by BC lawyer Shahdin Farsai.

Canadian Lawyer magazine publishes the article the Advocate was successfully threatened not to publish by CBA Sex./Gnder subsection.

Canadian Lawyer then deletes the article after receiving emails like this one from LSBC bencher:

Read the “hate-fueled’ and hurtful critique and judge for yourself. https://archive.vn/9mXoW

Threats to The Advocate

The March 2021 Entre Nous said this about the threat not to publish Shahdin Farsai’s article:

Since the directions (Practice Directives 59) were issued, the Advocate has received several comments from its readers critical of the directions. …We reached out to interested parties for their commentary.

…word of our inquiry leaked and we were rather dramatically cautioned that what the Advocate publishes on the matter could result in a Human Rights complaint against us. We have also been advised that this is not a topic that is open to debate and that criticism of the directions may amount to hate speech.

We are damned if we publish the comments and we are condemned if we do not.

We have waded into contentious issues in the past. …we have published letters on opposite sides of the Palestinian/Israeli debate… Now there’s a hotly divisive topic that involves closely held viewpoints centered on belief, dignity and ultimately identity. No one is threatening lawsuits and boycotts over that discussion (yet).

Where there is significant division within the profession on practice directions from the court, do we simply ignore it?

Read entire editorial here.

Read editorial plea to save The Advocate here in the Sept. Entre Nous https://the-advocate.ca/emag/issues/2021/Sept/page_10.html

And the editor’s explanation for the cover here
https://the-advocate.ca/emag/issues/2021/Sept/page_16.html