I	Literacy Awareness: One Factor Contributing to Fair and Equal Judgments
		by the Honourable Douglas R. Campbell, Federal Court of Canada
Introduction
		In my opinion, all judges should have a working understanding of literacy, not only of the demographics, but also of the problems that may become obvious when a person who is low literate appears in court. The odds are that many people who appear daily in courtrooms are functioning in their everyday lives with the disability of low literacy, because they have had limited learning opportunities in their lives, because they have a learning disability that was not diagnosed or appropriately addressed, or because they have faced other life difficulties which have made learning hard for them. Yet because many have become very skilled at developing strategies to deal with and hide their literacy problems, it is possible for a judge to misinterpret what he or she is seeing and hearing. This risk of misinterpretation can increase the danger that judgments will fall outside what most people see as fair and equal.
Factors Which Influence Judicial Decision Making
		The principal issue is to recognize that the judge's own life experience influences decision-making. All too often it is forgotten that the key player in the decision making process is the judge. While the law and precedents and the arguments of the lawyers are critically important, it is still the judge who makes the decisions. Therefore, the experience of the judge, the judge's world view, the judge's background knowledge and awareness and understanding are the key elements on which the judge draws in making a decision.

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