The Canadian justice system is one of the pillars that supports our democracy. The rule of law gives people a legal recourse to hold those in power to account. As the French ecclesiastic, preacher, journalist and political activist Jean-Baptiste Henri-Dominique Lacordaire said, “Between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, between the strong and the weak, it is freedom that oppresses, and the law that sets free.”

Lacordaire was right. The purpose of law in a free and democratic society is to liberate, not to restrain. Our legal system and its independence from political interference helps contribute to a just society where power is constrained so that freedom and safety are available to all.