Courting Controversy

If you were expecting to read an academic text analyzing justice issues faced by aboriginal peoples in Canada, or a legal text that explained the complex reasons why aboriginal people are overrepresented in the justice system, you would be as disappointed as I was after reading John Reilly’s Bad Medicine: A Judge’s Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community. Instead, this book is an odd hybrid of autobiography and newspaper editorial that is more of a tell-all than anything else.

One of the youngest judges ever appointed to the bench, John Reilly served 33 years as a judge in Alberta and gained considerable notoriety while doing so. He admits that nepotism may well have played a part in his appointment given that his father’s uncle was mayor of Calgary, and another family member, Louis St. Laurent, was prime minister of Canada. After he retired from the bench in 2008, he served as a supernumerary judge until his resignation in March 2011 so that he...