The Chief Justice of Canada, Richard Wagner, does not want to get involved in the debate on the bill strengthening the Official Languages Act (C-13) taking place in the House of Commons. However, he expects “all the judges” of the Supreme Court of Canada to be bilingual.
According to him, knowledge of English and French should be required for the nine posts of judge of the highest court in the country. “Normally, they should be bilingual when they arrive at court,” he said in an interview a stone’s throw from parliament.
Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is proposing to amend the Official Languages Act so that the Supreme Court “ensure[e] like other federal courts that “he who hears the case” understands, “without the aid of an interpreter”, French or English when the parties have opted for the case to take place in the one or the other of these languages and “understands English and French without the aid of an interpreter when the parties have opted for the case to take place in both languages”.
Asked to give his impressions of Bill C-13, Chief Justice Richard Wagner replied: “It’s a political decision, we don’t get involved in that”. Then, he adds: “Me, before the Court, here, I always said that we had to have bilingual judges. I don’t mind saying it. And “bilingual” means being able to carry on a conversation, then to understand, to read in both official languages. So I expect all judges of the Court who are appointed by Parliament, by the executive to be appointed. »
Richard Wagner, who was successively a judge at the Superior Court of Quebec (2004-2011) and a judge at the Court of Appeal of Quebec (2011-2012), before being appointed a judge at the Supreme Court of Canada, at the he autumn of 2012, stresses the need to select judges with the intention not of “pleasing the bars or lawyers”, but rather to “respect the needs of citizens”.
“For me, it’s important to have bilingual judges because of the very nature of the work, and because of the French fact, and because of civil law, and the common law “, he insists on the sidelines of an exchange on the 40and anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That said, Chief Justice Wagner refuses to take sides in the political-legal standoff between Quebec Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, and Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec, Lucie Rondeau, on the bilingualism requirement for certain judge positions in the greater Montreal area. “I will not interfere in this debate,” he says, without adding anything.