A magistrate justice of the peace of the Court of Quebec finds herself in embarrassment for having herself filed a document in a “polarizing” file of a colleague before the Superior Court. An ethical case that exposes the difficulty for the police to investigate sexual predators on social networks.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
“It’s a gross error on my part, the scope of which I have not measured,” admitted Justice of the Peace Dominique Benoit in a letter sent to the Conseil de la magistrature last year. The Council’s inquiry committee heard the parties on June 17 during a hearing, the existence of which was however not mentioned anywhere on the organization’s website.
The origin of this case: a police investigation into a case of computer luring and distribution of child pornography. In February 2021, a 15-year-old girl complained that a netizen forced her to send him intimate photos of herself on the app Snapchat. The predator threatened to send compromising photos to her friends if she did not comply, reveals a court document. The Internet user also wanted to have a sexual relationship with the victim.
Refusal to issue the prescription
To identify the suspect and “solve the crime,” the Montreal Police Service investigator turned to the Court of Quebec for a general production order to force Snapchat’s parent company in California to turn over information associated with the suspect’s account.
However, Presiding Justice of the Peace Suzanne Bousquet refused to issue the order, since she does not consider she has jurisdiction outside of Canada. A 2018 decision by the British Columbia Court of Appeal opened the door to this type of extraterritorial order. But this decision from another province – and therefore non-binding – is not unanimous among the presiding justices of the peace in Montreal. Three of them do not adhere to this principle, according to Judge Bousquet.
The public prosecutor thus appealed this decision in March 2021 (by a writ of certiorari) before the Superior Court of Quebec to have the matter decided. Judge Michel Pennou is still in deliberation on this subject.
Submitting an article
It is at this moment in history that Judge Dominique Benoit intervenes. This week in July 2021, she was assigned to judicial authorizations in Montreal. On her own initiative, she went to the office of the courthouse to file in the court file an article of doctrine from a professor supporting her colleague’s position.
The only purpose was to enlighten the reflection whether it was one way or the other. Since no judge has yet been seized of the case, I did not reflect further.
Judge Benoit in her letter
When she realized that her colleague Suzanne Bousquet risked being accused of interference and that the other justices of the peace could be “worried” by her “approach”, Judge Benoit informed Judge Michel Pennou, of the Superior Court, of the filing of the document in October 2021. “There was never any question for me of discussing the case”, she assures in her letter.
Made aware, the Associate Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec, Scott Hughes, filed a complaint against Judge Benoit with the Quebec Judicial Council in November 2021. “The judge must, clearly, be impartial and objective” , he wrote in his complaint.
Judge Benoit said she was “worried” that the complaint came from the associate chief judge “given his position of authority” as vice-president of the Conseil de la magistrature; the Associate Chief Justice is automatically a member of Council. Judge Benoit considers it “regrettable” not to have been met by Judge Hughes and “is hard to explain” the absence of a simple process to clarify the situation.
“Looking back, I can only be sorry for my thoughtless conduct. I still find it hard to understand the reasons for this initiative, which I attribute in large part to a misplaced excess of zeal on my part, in the context of an interest in a polarizing legal question that generates a lot of discussion,” explains the Judge Benoit.
The Judicial Council took the matter under advisement.
With the collaboration of Daniel Renaud, The Press