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Fair Access to Justice System a ‘Complex Issue’ Montana Supreme Court justice, legal officials attend listening session in Kalispell
BY JUSTIN FRANZ OF THE BEACON
Montana needs to make its justice system more accessible to all people, especially those who live below the poverty line, according to a Montana State Supreme Court justice.
Justice James Jeremiah Shea and other state and local legal officials participated in the Access to Justice Forum at the Flat- head Valley Community College on Oct. 21. The listening ses- sion featured presentations from various stakeholders in the region and was the first of a series of community meetings across the state hosted by the Montana State Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission.
“This is a complex issue that does not have a simple solution,” Shea said. “We’re a country of laws, but there are folks for whom the court room doors are closed for whatever reason, and we need to do what we can to provide that access.”
Included on the listening panel were Flathead County Dis- trict Court Judge Heidi Ulbricht, Flathead County Justice of the Peace Daniel Wilson, Flathead County Clerk of Court Peg Allison, state Sen. Bob Keenan, chief legal counsel for the office of the governor Andy Huff, and attorneys and past presidents of the State Bar of Montana Don Murray and Randy Snyder.
Alison Paul, executive director of the Montana Legal Ser- vices Association, which is a federally and privately funded pro- gram that provides free legal assistance in civil cases for low-in- come people, said in 2014 more than 7,000 people in Montana sought help from the association, including more than 450 in Flathead County. However, Paul said the association was only able to take on 62 new cases.
“We are under resourced because the federal government gives us money based on population, and since Montana has such a small population we get a smaller piece of the pie,” Paul said. “We use our scarce resources to their maximum ability...
Hilary Shaw,
Executive Director
of the Abbie Shelter
in Kalispell, speaks
during the Access
to Justice Forum at
FVCC
GREG LINDSTROM FLATHEAD BEACON
But there just isn’t enough.”
Hilary Shaw, executive director of the Abbie Shelter, said
there are not enough resources for victims of abuse to navigate the legal system. She added that other advocates have noticed that people accused of partner or family member abuse are rarely prosecuted in this area.
“It is one of the most common calls – one in four woman will be impacted by abuse in their life – and it’s a huge problem but it is rarely prosecuted,” Shaw said. “There should be accountabil- ity for offenders. We see the lack of prosecution as an extreme barrier to justice and safety.”
Another population that rarely gets adequate legal represen- tation is seniors, according Susan Kunda, director of the Flat- head County Agency on Aging. She said some seniors are vic- timized and there are few people in the legal system who can stand up to help them.
The forums will be held in seven locations across the state over the next year. Shea said the information gathered at the listening sessions would be used to make recommendations to the 2017 Legislature in hopes of resolving some of the issues.
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Retired Forest Service Leaders Urge Lease
Cancellation in Badger-Two Medicine
Former agency officials recommend cancellation in letter to Interior Department
What does it mean to you?
BY TRISTAN SCOTT OF THE BEACON
A slate of former U.S. Forest Service leaders last week joined a growing bloc of supporters calling for the cancellation of energy leases in the Badger-Two Medi- cine area near Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack received a letter from 19 former U.S. For- est Service leaders recommending that all oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine be cancelled.
In the letter, the former land manag- ers encouraged the agencies to cancel the leases, and collectively aligned with the recommendation of an independent federal agency that oversees the pres- ervation of historic places, the Advi- sory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), which last month said energy exploration on the Badger-Two Medi- cine would degrade the region’s cultural values, and that no amount of mitigation could lessen the damage.
The leases are on land considered sacred by the Blackfeet Tribe. The entire 165,588-acre area encompasses lands within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Lewis and Clark National Forest and Flathead National Forest, and is listed as a Traditional Cultural District under the National Historic Preservation Act.
The letter’s signers include former Lewis and Clark National Forest Super- visor Gloria Flora and retired Forest Ser- vice Chief Dale Bosworth.
They wrote that they agree with the ACHP’s assessment that the area’s cul- tural significance precludes its viability for oil and gas drilling.
“Those recommendations were unequivocal: it is not possible to miti- gate impacts of allowing gas exploration and development in the Badger-Two Medicine,” the letter states. “They are correct. We feel compelled to add our insights and experience from our com- bined hundreds of years of direct field experience with indigenous peoples, tra- ditional uses, sacred lands, ecosystems
and sense of place in the context of pro- posed developments.”
Also joining the Blackfeet in oppos- ing industrialization of the Badger-Two Medicine are the National Congress of American Indians, 18 other tribes from western states, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, Gov. Steve Bullock, all three Glacier County commissioners, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, and six former Glacier Park superintendents.
The leases in contention are held by Sidney Longwell, of the Louisiana-based Solenex LLC, which has sued the federal government in an effort to lift the sus- pension and begin drilling on the oil and gas leases it acquired in 1982.
Dave Galt, executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, said legal challenges and congressional sus- pensions have waylaid development for more than two decades, unfairly burden- ing Longwell and Solenex, which legally acquired the application for a permit to drill.
[email protected]
www.ThreeRiversBankMontana.com
OCTOBER 28, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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