Pictured left to right: 2017 Law Society Scholarship recipient Naomi Minwalla and Law Society President Herman Van Ommen, QC
Photo: Alistair for Ron Sangha Productions Ltd.
Vancouver, July 10, 2017 – The Law Society is pleased to award Naomi Minwalla the 2017 Law Society Scholarship. The $12,000 scholarship is offered annually to eligible candidates to encourage and financially assist them in completing graduate studies that will ultimately benefit the individual, the province and the legal profession in British Columbia.
“I would like to congratulate Ms. Minwalla on her achievement,” said President Herman Van Ommen, QC. “The Law Society is pleased to help fund her graduate studies, which will support her ongoing endeavors to represent the interests of marginalized people in society.”
Ms. Minwalla was called to the bar in September 1999 and has practised law as a sole practitioner since May 2001, focusing on serving refugees, trafficked women and other vulnerable and marginalized persons. She currently provides pro bono consultations while she is completing a Master of Studies in international human rights law at the University of Oxford. Her thesis The Right to Truth Re-examined was inspired by her participation in a human rights field study in Ayacucho, Peru, during which she lived in remote Indigenous communities and learned first-hand from residents about the impact of twenty years of internal conflict.
“Throughout my studies, deficiencies in the Canadian legal system, most profoundly in the areas of economic and social rights, have been illuminated,” Ms. Minwalla stated. “For instance, homelessness and the right to housing, which are pressing issues in BC, could be addressed more effectively if economic and social rights were recognized as fundamental human rights in Canada.”
The Law Society of British Columbia upholds and protects the public interest in the administration of justice by ensuring the independence, integrity and competence of lawyers, establishing education and professional development standards for lawyers, regulating the practice of law and preserving and protecting the rights and freedoms of all persons.
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