New judge to be named

IQALUIT — Nunavut will be getting a new judge in the next few months.

According to officials in the Nunavut government’s Justice department, Ottawa plans to appoint a third federal justice to the territory.

Currently the territory has just two permanent justices: Beverly Browne and Robert Kilpatrick.

In order to cut down the backlog of cases in Nunavut, other judges come up from the South on a transient basis.

Simon Awa, the GN’s assistant deputy minister of Justice, said having an additional justice based in Nunavut would be a positive step.

“I think it would be very useful if they were residing up here,” he said. “They would know the lifestyle, the culture, the customs and the people. It would have some impacts on their decisions.”

But even after a third judge is hired there will still be a need for southern judges to visit Nunavut, such as when trials must be conducted in French or when conflicts of interest arise with Nunavut’s own justices.