Honouring Social Justice.

Remarkable people who are committed to improving the lot of their fellow humans are rare. This book pays homage to one of them, the deceased lawyer, scholar, and social activist Dianne Martin.

The collection of 16 articles and a biographical introduction is organized into five parts. The scheme is designed to reflect the many facets of Martin’s contribution to the pursuit of social justice. Each article is carefully crafted and demands the full attention of the reader.

It is impossible in a review to engage in a satisfactory way the complexities of the arguments and analysis offered by all of the participating authors. However, there are two articles that seem to be emblematic of the overall themes. In the first article, Margaret E. Beare explores the issue of wrongful convictions. There is a poignancy to the topic given that, at the time of her sudden death, Dianne, along with Margaret, had been funded by SSHRC to examine police responses to the many recommendations that have arisen out of the several inquiries into wrongful convictions.

Beare finds much to criticize in these responses. She argues that the police possess a team mentality, which generates the sanctimonious belief that getting the bad guys justifies bending the rules. This mentality, coupled with the custom that it is permissible for the police to lie, virtually guarantees that wrongful convictions will result. Tough charges indeed, and it is up to the reader to decide whether she has made her case.

Perhaps the most sophisticated article in the collection is the contribution by James Stribopoulos. It draws on Professor Stibopoulos’s previously published work on police powers to isolate an important cause of wrongful convictions: the failure of our judiciary to play its traditional common law role. The Supreme Court, in particular, should be forcing Parliament to produce clear legal authorization for police investigative practices. Instead, the court opted for a piecemeal authorization rooted in dubious common law doctrine. Police have responded with shoddy discretionary decision making, thereby creating the sad situation that Dianne Martin spent her life fighting.