KENORA – The Ne-Chee Friendship Centre’s Justice Team has created a pop-up court to address the challenges of court attendance as a result of pandemic lock down court closures.
“A couple of our justice team staff had come up with this idea, just because of what they were seeing with the courts, and the struggle that people were having connecting virtually,” Patti Fairfield, executive director of the Ne-Chee Friendship Centre, said in an interview,
“For various reasons, some people don’t have, you know, the IT to do that, some, don’t have enough minutes to sit in on virtual court waiting for their justice matters, Internet disruptions, you know, all of those types of things, so what was happening is bench warrants were being issued”
The popup courts happen every Thursday from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. and members of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community requiring justice support can access this service. Using the Friendship Centre’s physically distanced event space, laptops and wifi access,
“It’s been hard enough for anybody to navigate all this virtual technology, you know, that we’ve all been going through for how long with Zoom and all of these other meetings, so sometimes it’s difficult to navigate that for anybody, but for people with justice matters, and especially, you know, our vulnerable population like those that are homeless, it’s more of a struggle to connect for matters such as justice,” Fairfield said.
According to Fairfield, the popup court idea which is new to the area is something that other aboriginal friendship centres should look at.
The popup court is held every Thursday at the Ne-chee Friendship Centre in Kenora.
