Criticism
In February, 2008, the organization was criticized in an 87 page report by the Ontario Ombudsman for a mishandling of funds in the legal defence of Richard Wills. The report, A Test of Wills, explains: "Legal Aid Ontario had estimated that Mr. Wills’ defence would cost $50,000. When it was done, it in fact cost more than a million dollars". Mr. Wills, considered to be a person of means to fund his own defence, was charged with the murder of his longtime lover. In the months preceding his trial he had transferred his assets into his wife's name. Subsequently, he applied to Legal Aid Ontario where he was effectively provided a “no check/blank cheque” defence.
Read more about this topic: Legal Aid Ontario
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige through being mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)