Attached to the enormous power to undo reputations is an obligation of reparation and balance incumbent on the media in the handling of legal cases.
Posted at 2:00 p.m.
The current Attorney General of Quebec, Simon Jolin-Barrette, is certainly not responsible for holding the independent investigation initiated in 2012 by a former Minister of Public Security, Stéphane Bergeron. According to the reason mentioned at the time: “secret expenses must exclusively be used for operating expenses…”
At the end of the investigation, the basis of the criminal charges was that a secret fund reserved for the remuneration of informants and the conduct of secret operations would have allowed the allocation of lucrative severance pay. After a long trial, all the accused were acquitted. By confirming the judgment of acquittal, the Court of Appeal debunked the thesis of the body responsible for criminal prosecutions, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP).
Since the law recognizes the institutional independence of the DPCP and its lawyers, the current Attorney General is therefore not held accountable.
preposterous accusations
According to the Court of Appeal, the DPCP’s appeal was “filed without right”. Courtois, the reproach is no less cold.
Given the length of the delays and the inflation of legal costs, the appeal procedure was abusive and prejudicial to the respondents-accused. Above all, the Court of Appeal concluded that the departure agreement of a deputy director of the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) was a transaction of “indisputable legality”. The Review Tribunal could not identify in this “transaction in accordance with law and practice an act of dishonesty for the purposes of the offense of fraud”.
As to the charge of breach of trust, there was no “manifestation of conduct contrary to the requirements of the respondents [accusés] much less a serious and marked departure from the standards that anyone holding their position would have been expected to observe”.
According to the appeal tribunal, the use of a fund – described as “secret” in the media – was only a simple “budget envelope that has become, over the years, a discretionary fund”. Essentially, “the fund was used in a much more transparent way than usual, while the identity of the recipients of the payments was spelled out.”
abusive conduct
In a related case1, the appeal judges concluded that there was no legal basis for an attempt by the Attorney General to recover money: “Asking an employee to reimburse the freely negotiated severance package, more than seven years after the conclusion of the agreement, is reckless. »
According to the Court of Appeal, despite an exemplary career, a co-defendant was replaced at the General Staff following political pressure. The payment of severance pay was not excessive and “everything was done, in complete transparency, from the regular budget of the SQ”, says the judgment. Revealed to be abusive, the Attorney General’s appeal was dismissed and ordered to reimburse the fees paid by the defendants, namely $55,058 plus interest.
The misfortune of the Attorney General has lengthened. On April 11, the Superior Court dismissed another short-lived lawsuit.
In total, the reimbursement of fees due to the two co-defendants as well as moral and punitive damages amount to $361,688 plus interest.
The court found that “the AGQ’s claim was originally ill-founded and reckless, self-defeating and the result of an unreasonable and abusive use of civil process.” The magistrate assessed “with severity his lack of rigor, his temerity and his stubbornness”.
Legal aid
In a related case, the Court of Appeal recognized that the former director of the SQ Richard Deschesnes was entitled to full salary during his provisional statement. His discretionary replacement flouted the law ensuring the independence of the director general of the SQ “against any political inclination to intervene with regard to activities related to the execution of the law and criminal investigations”.
The Attorney General was ordered to reimburse the fees paid by Deschesnes, namely $401,910 plus interest.
Result
Under current law, lawsuits filed on behalf of or against the Attorney General call into question his accountability, and the civil claims of former SQ officers are still pending.
In short, the overall bill risks being silently passed on to taxpayers!