Judge Renée Cochard receives Indigenous Justice Award

For her outstanding service in establishing and presiding over two specialty courts in Edmonton, Judge Renée Cochard is the 2023 recipient of the Indigenous Justice Award from the Indigenous Law Students’ Association at the University of Alberta.

Cochard, ’78 LLB, was a founding member of the Edmonton Indigenous Court in 2021 and the Edmonton Mental Health Court in 2018.“Her prominence in both these courts has ensured that those who deal with injustice because of mental health concerns and/or Indigenous systemic barriers in the judicial system are more able to engage with the criminal justice system,” said the Indigenous Law Students’ Association, during a presentation of the award on March 6, during its 2023 ILSA Speaker Series.

The students also said that “Judge Cochard is known to have treated these individuals with an immense amount of respect through both her words and actions.”

Chief among those actions, Cochard ensured that individuals who came through her court were compassionately connected with the resources they needed to succeed beyond court.

SPECIALTY COURTS

When founding the Indigenous court, Cochard brought Native Counselling Services of Alberta and the Yellowhead Tribal Council into a partnership that also includes Legal Aid defence, court administration, police corrections and community service providers. The mental health court “slows the court process down,” said Cochard, so that the lawyers and judges receive the full story that can often be lost amidst a conventional court’s busy schedule.

The Edmonton Indigenous Court, which sits once a week, focuses on a restorative justice approach to crime through peacemaking and connecting accused people to their cultures and communities. All participants, including the judge, sit at a large oval table, and court begins with a prayer and a smudge. The Edmonton Mental Health Court, which sits three times a week, takes a collaborative rather than an adversarial approach. It includes a mental health worker in the court, a social worker available to help accused persons access resources in the community and navigate the system, and a psychiatrist who is in regular attendance.

JUDICIAL APPOINTMENT

Although Cochard is non-Indigenous, she was inspired to help establish the Indigenous court after being appointed a judge in 2015, when she began regularly seeing the effects of inter-generational trauma on Indigenous people who appeared in her court. She also vividly remembers seeing Indigenous people “treated like second-class citizens” while she was a teenager living in Grande Prairie and Peace River.

Cochard was a judge of the Provincial Court of Alberta and is now a supernumerary judge who will be retiring from the bench in December 2023.

Among her many judicial achievements, she headed a 2021 fatality inquiry into the 2014 death of a four-year-old Indigenous girl in care known as Serenity. In January, 2023, Cochard made 20 recommendations in a report stemming from that inquiry, including that medical examiner reports be made no later than six months after a death, that all complaints about a child’s well-being be thoroughly investigated by someone who is qualified, and that children should only be taken from their mother as a last resort.

OTHER WORK

Cochard also serves on the board of directors for the Canadian Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges and is a member of that organization’s Projects Committee. For the U of A’s Faculty of Law, Cochard was a sessional instructor from 1998 to December 2022, teaching family law, alternative dispute resolution, and mental health and the law. Before becoming a judge, Cochard practised family law in Edmonton. In the 1979, with Jean McBean, QC, ’72 LLB, she founded the first all-woman law firm in Alberta (McBean Becker Cochard and Gordon). In 2005, she established Cochard Johnson with Lori Johnson, KC, ’94 LLB. Her interest in family law and in fighting oppression also took root Grande Prairie and Peace River.

“There I saw, first-hand, how men abuse power when two of my fellow students became pregnant by teachers, and three of my girlfriends were sent away and had their babies taken from them after becoming pregnant by boyfriends,” she said.

Cochard was called to the bar in 1979 and holds an LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution from York University (her thesis concerned residential school litigation). In 2004, she was appointed a Queen’s Counsel for her significant contributions to the legal profession.

“I am deeply moved about receiving this award,” Cochard said of the ILSA honour. “But as I think you can see, this was achieved by the working partnership of many people and this award is dedicated to them.”