The press release of April 7, 2021 announcing the decision of the Minister of Justice of Canada, David Lametti, to order a new trial for ex-judge Jacques Delisle was nevertheless serious: “A thorough investigation has (had) location…”, “the discovery of new information…”, “a miscarriage of justice has probably occurred…”.
To give credibility to his position, Lametti cited section 696.1 of the Criminal Code and the confidential investigation of the Group responsible for the review of criminal convictions (GRCC) composed of eminent jurists. Around ten experts from three Canadian provinces would also have been involved.
Convicted of the premeditated murder of his wife at 25 years in prison by a unanimous jury, rejected by all the courts to which he addressed including the Supreme Court of Canada, Delisle was free again in the blink of an eye and presumed innocent.
No judicial error
Last Thursday, the famous classified GRCC report was made public and we know today that Minister Lametti did not tell the whole truth. Contrary to what it has led people to believe over the past three years, the committee is not saying that there was a miscarriage of justice. He believes that Delisle lied to investigators and made strategic errors during the trial, such as choosing not to testify, which is entirely attributable to him.
As for the new expert opinions submitted to the Committee, they do not constitute new facts, several experts having even been able to pronounce on the basis of the evidence available at the trial. Again, Delisle’s questionable choice not to present these expert witnesses at trial does not constitute a miscarriage of justice.
In light of these disturbing revelations, everything indicates that Jacques Delisle benefited from preferential treatment from the minister and that the latter’s decision constitutes an abuse of power. For considerations that we know (today) do not exist, he dismissed the highly exceptional nature of the power to review a conviction and discredited the flawless judicial process which led to this conviction for murder.
Lametti must explain himself
Other questions emerge. Who influenced Minister Lametti, an elected Liberal politician, to make this astonishing decision? Lawyers ? Friends ? Other politicians or promoters of all kinds? Unlike the courts of justice which are framed by solid guarantees of impartiality and independence, the office of the Minister of Justice is permeable to cronyism and all forms of pressure. Is his decision more purely ideological, linked to the soft on crime philosophy of the Trudeau government?
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice should take up the matter and summon David Lametti to explain himself. Question of whether in Canada, still today, all citizens are truly equal before the law.
Stevens LeBlanc/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
Marc Bellemare, lawyer and former Minister of Justice for the Liberal Party of Quebec