Nunavik to get new community justice centre

The courthouse in Puvirnituq, one of two Nunavik communities being considered to host the region’s new community justice centre, which will offer free legal services to Nunavimmiut. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

KUUJJUAQ—Nunavimmiut will soon have access to confidential and free legal services through a new centre set to open in 2018.

In 2016, the Quebec government first announced plans to fund a community justice centre in Nunavik, one of 12 regions in the province slated to receive one.

Now an advisory committee in the region is in the planning phase, said Joanne Fortin, assistant director at the Kativik Regional Government’s legal department and one of the committee’s members.

The committee has narrowed down its choices for the centre’s host community to Inukjuak or Puvirnituq, Fortin told the KRG regional council meeting in Kuujjuaq on Wednesday, Feb. 28.

The centre will have a coordinator and a legal technician, positions funded through Makivik Corp. They will offer legal information, support and referral services to the public, in person or by phone—and without any charge.

The announcement of plans for the centre came shortly after Quebec’s Justice Minister Stephanie Vallée toured the region in 2016.

“Nunavik has specific needs in terms of legal information and access to the justice system, especially because of the large area covered and differing cultural perceptions of justice,” she said at the time.

The new centre also comes in the wake of two separate reports, from the Barreau du Québec and from Quebec’s Ombudsman’s office, highlighting a justice system that’s both lacking in resources and poorly adapted to the North.

There are currently six other community justice centres around the province, supported through Quebec’s Access to Justice Fund.

The new centre should be in operation later this year.