Under a top judge’s gaze, Iqaluit students practice court

Gregory MacCormack, acting as a lawyer for the defence, grills a witness during an April 2 moot court exercise at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit. The exercise saw Grade 10 students from Iqaluit taking over all the roles in the courtroom, presided over by Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Inuksuk High School student Kyra Flaherty as “Jessie Inuksuk,” accused of stealing a snowmobile, listens to testimony April 2 during a moot court held in the Nunavut Court of Justice. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Dressed in a sports jacket, dress shirt and tie, Gregory MacCormack, a Grade 10 student at Iqaluit’s Inuksuk High School, looked like a lawyer and acted like a lawyer as he grilled “Jack Inuksuk” on the witness stand April 2 in a Nunavut Court of Justice courtroom.

MacCormack, who says he’s more interested in acting than law, doesn’t want to become a lawyer. But you would never have known that when he questioned Inuksuk about what he did on the day his “sister,” Jessie, was accused of stealing a snowmobile.

MacCormack and other students from Kim Masson’s Grade 10 class played the roles of lawyers, witnesses, courtroom staff, security officers and RCMP members April 2 for their moot court, with its simulated court proceedings.

But this Iqaluit courtroom exercise featured a real judge: Supreme Court of Canada Justice Marie Deschamps who’s visiting Iqaluit for a Canadian Bar Association event.

Deschamps, a former judge with the Quebec Superior Court, has sat on the Supreme Court, the highest court in Canada and final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system, since 2002.

Having a Supreme Court of Canada justice preside over a moot court is a bit like having an Olympic-gold medal winner referee a sports event, an Iqaluit lawyer said.

After presiding over the two-hour moot court, Deschamps said she could “see the seeds of good lawyers” among the students.

“I hope this kind of exercise prompts you into thinking about law school,” she said.

But whether or not the students decide to head to law school, they did end up with a better idea of what happens in court.

After studying Canada’s legal system in social studies earlier this year, the students spent the last three weeks preparing, assisted by lawyers from the federal government, the Government of Nunavut and the Maliiganik Tukisiiniakvik legal aid society.

The case they considered involved that of a snowmobile taken from a cabin by “Jessie Inuksuk,” played by Kyra Flaherty who admitted to taking the snowmobile, but said she intended to return it.

Inuksuk faced two charges of taking a motor vehicle without the consent of the owner and stealing property worth more than $5,000.

Under cross-examination, Inuksuk said she borrowed the snowmobile from a cabin, where she had sought refuge when her snowmobile broke down.

She said she was running short of asthma medication but didn’t want to use the satellite phone in the cabin because she was worried about the weather and didn’t want to delay getting her medication.

To get to the snowmobile, which belonged to the cabin’s owner, she had to break into a shed.

After returning back to Iqaluit on the snowmobile the following morning, she kept the snowmobile for two days.

When she was arrested, she was joyriding in the snowmobile along with a friend on a second machine.

She told the RCMP she was returning the machine to its owner.

One witness for the defence said Inuksuk would never take a snowmobile, that the delays were understandable (she didn’t have the owner’s telephone number, she had to go to work and then her mother got sick), while another witness for the prosecution said Inuksuk never mentioned the snowmobile wasn’t hers.

Lawyers had to present arguments showing whether or not Inuksuk had “fraudulent intent” when she took the flashy new green and purple snowmobile and didn’t return it.

During the moot court proceedings, lawyers had to deal with some unexpected issues, such as testimony from “Jack Inuksuk” who suggested a conspiracy might explain why there was any doubt was cast on his sister’s intent.

“This was very realistic,” Deschamps told the students afterwards. “You don’t know how it will unfold.”

“Crown prosecutor” Kara Ashley delivered a powerful closing address for the prosecution noting that Jessie Inuksuk “did have other options” besides keeping the snowmobile.

“But she failed to do so,” Ashley said.

After hearing all the witnesses and the arguments, Deschamps promised to deliver a written judgment on the case in a timely fashion.

Then, as is not the case at the Supreme Court of Canada, she posed for pictures with everyone in the courtroom before the students headed off for a special pizza lunch at the high school.

After their April 2 moot court exercise ends, Grade 10 students from Inuksuk High School in Iqaluit stand with Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps and some of the Iqaluit-based lawyers who helped them prepare the courtroom exercise. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)