Mr. A. Berzins

This interview covers the career of Andrejs Berzins, who served as Crown Attorney for Ottawa from 1984 to 2000. Born in Latvia in 1944 as a refugee, Berzins came to Canada in 1949, attended McGill University and Queen’s Law School (graduating 1971), and began his Crown career in 1973 after articling in Kingston. His early career included a one-year leave to work as Crown Counsel in Bermuda (1980) and a teaching exchange at University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (1990).

Berzins became known as an innovator in criminal justice, developing numerous pioneering programs that were later adopted across Ontario. He established Ottawa’s first diversion programs for shoplifters and minor offenders, working with organizations like the Salvation Army and Elizabeth Fry Society. He created a victim-offender mediation program through the Ottawa Dispute Resolution Centre, handling hundreds of cases annually in courthouse facilities. His Court Outreach Project addressed mental health issues in the criminal justice system, using social work students to assist mentally ill defendants – a model now used across Ontario.

The interview also covers Berzins’ work establishing the Collaborative Justice Project with his wife Lorraine and colleagues, applying restorative justice principles to serious cases like impaired driving causing death. After retirement in 2000, he worked on CIDA projects in Latvia and helped establish the Akitsiraq Law School in Nunavut for Inuit students. Throughout his career, Berzins advocated for using criminal law as a last resort, emphasizing quality of justice over cost savings, and integrating social services into the court system.

This description was written by AI and may contain some inaccuracies.