Families of victims killed by police call on Quebec to increase financial assistance for coroner's inquiries

Five years after his death, Koray Celik's family is still fighting for justice

In March 2017, Celik, 28, was intoxicated and in crisis at the family home in Île Bizard.

His parents called police to calm him down. But as police tried to restrain him, the family said the officers beat and choked him.

He had a heart attack and died. In the fall, a coroner’s inquiry will look into his death.

"We are direct witnesses of the death of our son," said Celik's father, Cesur Celik.

"We want to participate in this inquiry, but there’s a problem. It is financially very expensive."

The Quebec Civil Liberties Union is calling on the government to do more to help families of victims who die at the hands of police. They say the families don't get enough money to properly represent themselves at coroner's inquiries.

It can cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to properly prepare for a coroner’s inquiry. Lawyers often have to pore over hundreds of pages of evidence, consult expert witnesses, and prepare witnesses for cross examinations.

But the government caps legal fees for victims families at $20,000.

"It’s clearly not enough," said Alexandre Popovic, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Coalition Against Police Repression and Abuse.

"Those police officers, when they are represented by a lawyer, it costs them a lot more."

Civil liberties groups say an access-to-information request revealed the city paid more than $280,000 in legal fees for officers in the coroner’s inquiry into the death of Pierre Coriolan, who was shot and killed by police in 2017 after they responded to a disturbance call at his home.

"If we have interested parties that have weaker representation, the police is going to triumph, it’s going to be their version all over the news, but is it the truth?" said Popovic.

Pointing to provinces like Ontario and Quebec, which pay five times more, Popovic is calling on Quebec to change the funding model so families like the Celiks can get answers to questions that continue to haunt them.