Hay River (Jun 12/06) - After 10 years, Beatrice Lepine has resigned as a justice of the peace in Hay River, but she has not gone quietly.

She is taking some parting shots at a justice system which she says is not working properly.

Beatrice Lepine has resigned as a justice of the peace in Hay River after 10 years. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"It's more like a very dry, inhumane system. There's nothing restorative about it at all," she says. "I'm disgusted. I'm angry with the system."

Lepine says her concerns "boiled over" when she recently sentenced a pregnant crack addict to jail. A year ago, she had sentenced another pregnant addict to jail.

"There are no programs in the community to help these victims. I call them victims," she says, adding that includes the unborn children.

While Lepine declined to give specifics of the cases, she says none of the sentencing options she had helped the women. She could amend house-arrest sentences they were already serving, or send them to jail, where they would receive minimal counselling.

However, she says there are no six-to-eight-month programs in the NWT specifically for crack cocaine users.

She sentenced both women to jail - one for days and the other for months - to remove them from the crack world, she says. "It was for their own safety. That was the compelling argument."

Lepine says the recent sentencing was the final straw for her. "I didn't sleep very well that night."

The next day she submitted her resignation.

Lepine, 53, outlined her concerns in a May 25 resignation letter to Chief Judge Brian Bruser of the NWT Territorial Court. The chief judge is responsible for overseeing justices of the peace in the NWT.

The former JP declined to release the letter for publication, explaining it was confidential.

Lepine believes community justice committees should have more resources.

She says restoring people to wholeness should be the goal, rather than sending them to jail.

"I'm not talking about some impossible scenario," she says, noting youth justice committees are very successful.

"I think more people need to speak up," she adds.

Lepine hopes to be able to continue working on the problem at the community level.

Attempts to contact Chief Judge Bruser through his office were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the office of Justice Minister Brendan Bell says the minister will not comment, since justices of the peace are under the sole jurisdiction of the chief judge.

In her resignation letter, Lepine also objected to a recent decision on spousal assault.

She notes that within the last six months, JPs were told by the chief judge that they would no longer have the power to hear spousal assault cases.

Instead, spousal assault cases would go straight to Territorial Court.

"The primary reason told to us was we don't have the legal training," Lepine says, adding the argument included Territorial Court judges are more aware of legal precedents.

However, she recently was disturbed to learn of a case in Yellowknife where a man was sentenced to only four months for a violent assault.

"I think the cases are better handled at the community level," she says, explaining JPs often know the people involved.

Plus, she says JPs might be better aware of community resources that might help victims or offenders.

Lepine also points to another example of a "convoluted" justice system.

In April of 2005, the Family Violence Protection Act gave JPs the new authority to issue emergency protection orders, which can order a spouse to stay away from a home for up to 90 days.

Lepine can't understand why JPs can issue such orders, but not hear spousal assault cases.

She says emergency protection orders are automatically reviewed by a judge of the NWT Supreme Court, not the Territorial Court.

"It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes any sense," she says. "There's no integration between any of these programs."