World War III may have spelled doom for civilization as we know it in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but the spirit of justice lives on! Lives on and thriving by the look of it. It may come as a surprise to many that instead of a lawless, barbarian future, Aunty Entity, ruler of Bartertown and keen legal thinker, along with her sidekick Dr. Dealgood, have put to rest many of the difficulties that are vexing some of Canada’s best legal minds. This includes concern that the judicial system is transparent and the public can see that justice is being done, solving the access to justice crisis currently plaguing the Canadian court system, and settling the seemingly endless debates surrounding sentencing principles and application. The new environment will also mean some substantial changes to the legal profession, but promises a glowing future for the lawyers who can adapt.
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) highlighted the importance of maintaining public confidence in the justice system in R v S(RD) [1997] 3 SCR 484 through insuring that a reasonable person would be able to see that justice was being done in cases that went to the justice system. This can be quite a challenging threshold to meet in today’s complex society, and in a labyrinthine justice system that uses convoluted legal language and procedures which can still be mystifying and opaque to many people.
Luckily, in the world of Mad Max, the apocalypse has made radioactive rubble of the labyrinth of the Canadian legal system. In its place, Bartertown’s legal eagle, Aunty Entity, has come up with an answer. Thunderdome! In Thunderdome, the impenetrable procedural complexity of Canada’s justice system has given way to spectacle that is readily transparent and comprehensible to everyone. The moment a dispute goes to Thunderdome, the lights “Thunderdome Live” flash on top of the dome, alerting everyone in Bartertown that a trial by combat is about to begin. Everybody can take a place somewhere on the outside of Thunderdome’s steel structure and watch as the trial begins and the wheels of justice begin to turn.
Everyone has a chance to witness justice being done in Thunderdome.
Thunderdome’s catchy creed: “Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves” also does away with all that pesky legal jargon nobody understands and ensures that everybody watching will clearly see that justice is done. Gone are the days when judges produce hundreds of pages of analysis in their decisions trying rather unsuccessfully to interpret the law. In Bartertown, we not only have a catchy slogan, but also a very precise description of Thunderdome’s legal procedures.
Despite this great advancement in lawmaking, some will argue that the law is too complex to be boiled down to a single slogan, no matter how catchy. This is true, and we can see in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome that Aunty Entity has brought her highly precise legal sensibilities to contract law as well. Contract law in Bartertown is just as catchy and accessible as the law of Thunderdome: “Bust a Deal, Spin the Wheel”. This simple phrase is a precise description of the spectacle Batertown’s citizenry get to witness when someone busts a deal. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the Wheel is brought out to the middle of town for all to see and the ceremony is presided over with the colorful narration of Dr. Dealgood and his two lovely assistants. When the offender spins the Wheel, often with the aid of one of the assistants, justice is visibly and comprehensibly being done. This is obviously a considerable advancement over the quagmire of contract law today.
As my readers may be inferring, Bartertown has also made great strides in solving the access to justice crisis which plagues Canadian courts today. In an August 2015 speech, Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverly McLaughlin stated that Canada is facing an access to justice crisis as legal fees skyrocket and courts are backlogged. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Aunty Entity has employed her great legal talents to deal with the fallout of this crisis considerably better than we have.
In Canada, the crisis is on full display as we can witness Kafka’s short story “Before the Law” in action in both the civil and criminal courts. Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure are designed to discourage people from bringing their claims to civil court by making claimants jump through so many hoops that it is almost impossible to get there. Even if someone does manage to make it all the way to a trial, it could take years to get there and even longer to get your case heard. The criminal courts aren’t much better. They are so slow that when the SCC decided in R v Jordan [2016] 1 SCR 631 to put an upper ceiling of 30 months (i.e. 2.5 years. Yes, years.) for a case to be heard in a superior court, this was seen as a reasonable time frame.
On the other hand, accessing Thunderdome is quick and easy. According to Aunty Entity, it is as easy as picking a fight. From the vantage point of a legal system so backlogged that a sleepy tortoise is a speed demon by comparison, this seems too good to be true. Yet, Aunty Entity’s claim is borne out when Max picked a fight with Master / Blaster for appropriating his vehicle. Within minutes, they were escorted to Thunderdome and the trial was ready to get underway. This is the kind of accessibility Canadian courts can only dream of, and a fantastic step up from the sleepy tortoise justice of today.
Sentencing is also very controversial in Canada, as judges tend to craft highly disparate sentences for similar crimes. The SCC tried, albeit not very successfully, to resolve sentencing disparity in R v McDonnell [1997] 1 SCR 948. No doubt Dr. Dealgood was talking about Canadian sentencing law when he said that “Justice is a roll of the dice”. However, Aunty Entity has learned, by the dust of them all she has learned, and in Bartertown sentencing has become much more predictable. Sentencing principles are simple: bust a deal, and spin the wheel. Better yet, all ten sentencing possibilities are laid out clearly on the Wheel for all to see. In Bartertown, rolls of the dice, better known as a balancing of sentencing principles in Canada, have become a thing of the past. However, Bartertown has not completely broken with tradition and the unpredictability and confusion of Canadian sentencing still has a small part to play. One of the segments of the Wheel is “Aunty’s Choice”, meaning she can more or less “roll the dice” in passing sentence if she wants.
Even better, people convicted of busting a deal get to play a key part in creating their own sentence. This is important and progressive step that is a definitive answer to Robert Martinson’s classic paper “What Works”, where he analyzed the connection between sentencing and recidivism. According to Martinson, nothing works to reduce recidivism. However, upon reading his paper, it’s obvious that convicted persons are acted upon, and not actors, when it comes to crafting their sentence. When facing the Wheel, it is up to convicted persons to spin it, thus ensuring that they play a key role in crafting their own sentence.
With so many of the legal woes confronting the Canadian justice system resolved and justice so easily accessible, does this mean the end for lawyers? Of course not, but lawyers will have to adapt to this new and improved legal landscape. We can see that the notion of having an advocate has survived when Max picks a fight with Master / Blaster. The fight is clearly with Master, but Master sends Blaster into Thunderdome as his advocate. This creates a great deal of potential for the lawyers of tomorrow. However, lawyers, known by some as “Word Ninjas” for their skillful use of language, will have to take the “Ninja” part a bit more seriously and add some new skills to their repertoire. This will be a challenging transformation for the legal profession, but ultimately a rewarding one as lawyers redefine their advocacy skills in Thunderdome.
In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the future looks pretty bleak for most of civilization, but the spirit of justice is obviously thriving on the day after. Under the tutelage of Aunty Entity’s keen legal mind, the law has become transparent, accessible and comprehensible to all. Lawyers will need to adapt, but a glowing future awaits those in the profession who are still around on the day after.