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Dianne Martin

A life lived in defense of justice

YWCA Toronto
women of distinction award 2005: special award

Dianne Martin was a forebearer of justice for women in Canada. She was a leader among a generation of women who left no legal stone unturned in the application of feminist principles to the legal framework of ordinary women’s daily experience. The establishment of midwifery as a profession, the reform of sexual assault law, the fight for citizens’ review of police activities, the defense of the wrongfully convicted – there is scarcely an area of major law reform benefiting the marginalized with which Dianne Martin was not intricately involved. In a sudden and untimely end to an influential career, Dianne Martin died of a heart attack on December 20, 2004. She is the recipient in 2005 of a Woman of Distinction Special Award.

Dianne Martin graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1976, articling with Clayton Ruby and Marlys Edwardh. She began her legal career practicing criminal law as one of only a handful of women doing so at that time. Along with those brave few of her generation, Dianne Martin broke into a bastion of male privilege smugly defended by judges who referred to women lawyers as "lawyerettes", "lady lawyers" or perhaps most disparagingly as "Missy Lawyer". Despite the uphill battle this climate presented, Dianne Martin carved out a career in the application of a feminist sensibility to the practice of criminal law. Her approach to seeking justice was ferocious, and based on an understanding that disadvantage in the legal system, as in life, was often rooted in prejudice on the basis of gender, race, class, sexual orientation and ability.

She made a point of understanding her client better than any jury or judge could hope to– including the circumstances that led to their entanglement with the law, and how they might improve them. This was particularly true in her passionate defense of Marlene Moore, the first woman named a dangerous offender in Canada. A childhood victim of sexual abuse both at home and at the infamous Grandview School for Girls, Marlene Moore ultimately chose suicide in a federal prison in 1988, an ending that Ms. Martin worked tirelessly to prevent throughout her long and loyal association with her.

Early on in her career, Ms. Martin was a key part of a major reform initiative undertaken by several groups to replace the offences of "rape" and "indecent assault" with the offence of "sexual assault”. The reform was intended to reflect the violent as opposed to the sexual nature of the crime. It removed the immunity of husbands, who until then could not be found guilty of rape within marriage. It also removed several sexist rules of evidence that further victimized the woman who had reported the crime. Dianne Martin, the only woman on the Executive of the Criminal Lawyers Association of Ontario at the time, helped write the brief to the Commons Justice Committee that ultimately secured the reforms.

Ms. Martin also formed the Citizen’s Independent Review of Police Activities. While conventional wisdom today, the idea that the police could not be relied upon to impartially investigate their own conduct was considered radical at the time. Through her efforts in community coalition with groups such as the Elizabeth Frye Society and The Urban Alliance on Race Relations, the Ontario Government implemented this path-breaking reform subsequently adopted by governments across North America.

In the mid-1980s, Dianne Martin assisted in a coroner’s inquest into the death of a baby delivered by midwives. While the inquest sought to bring midwifery under the control of the medical profession, the process wound up a triumph for both feminist legal practice and autonomous women’s health services. Due in part to Dianne Martin’s role in argumentation, a recommendation granting midwives autonomy within their specific sphere of practice – natural childbirth—became a new model for all of Canada. It has since provided an alternative for women in childbirth, and has helped solidify and legitimate midwifery as a career for women.

In her defense of the wrongfully convicted, Dianne Martin perhaps found the most public recognition. Her role in the inquiry into the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin, and the establishment of the Innocence Project at York University, was at the forefront of a new wave of legal advocacy for those whose innocence could now be proven. Through this work, and her powerful mentorship, the careers of many young law students --now leading criminal lawyers, judges and crowns—were launched.

Throughout her illustrious career she searched for truth in and through law. It was her guidance that leading legal professionals would seek when balancing the difficult tension between due process for the accused, and protection of women victims of crime. Her fighting spirit won her clients the best possible representation, as well as the respect of her adversaries.

Dianne Martin was a mentor, a cherished friend, a sought-after consultant, a respected academic, a bold litigator and a stalwart defender of women’s and equity rights.

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