In a recent interview with To have to and at a conference in Montreal, Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner said two things. First, federal judges would not be partisan. Second, the Court would not play a political role. The idea of a government of judges would therefore be erroneous. What is it exactly?
According to Mr. Wagner, the magistrates would not replace the elected officials, because they received the mission of the Parliament to interpret the laws in the light of the Charter and to invalidate them if necessary. However, as I demonstrated in The Battle of London, in 1980-1981, the Supreme Court gave confidential information to the political power to help repatriation, thus violating the separation of powers. The magistrates wanted a charter that would give them more powers at the expense of elected officials, particularly those in the National Assembly.
Since then, they regularly impose their political choices. In interpreting the Charter, they no longer simply say whether a government violates the Constitution. They also dictate the solution.
This phenomenon is particularly visible when it comes to the financing of the judicial system. This was the case, for example, with the Askov case in Ontario. Askov was a violent criminal who had awaited trial for two years while remaining at large. In 1990 the charges against him were dropped. The Supreme Court ruled that his right to a trial within a reasonable time had been violated. It was up to the Ontario government to put more resources into the administration of justice.
50,000 cases
That decision led to charges being dropped in 50,000 cases in Ontario alone, it was calculated, in 2016, including 290 sexual assault cases and three murder cases. One can imagine what the victims and their loved ones must have experienced to see the accused escape justice in this way!
Of course, the judges then blamed the elected officials for this disaster. Yet nothing in the Constitution says that two years is too long for a trial. It was the magistrates who invented this period of time.
The ruling also forced Ontario to pump more money into the justice system, as the judges wanted. However, in a democracy, it is up to the elected representatives to make the budgetary arbitrations between the various missions financed by the State. In the aftermath of this affair, the Ontario Auditor General denounced the under-funding of education and the excessive expenditure for the construction of prisons. According to him, this situation was directly linked to the Askov judgment.
History repeats itself with the Jordan decision. According to this 2016 decision, trials cannot exceed 18 or 30 months depending on the case. This has led to the dismissal of 800 cases across the country to date. Suspected murderers, rapists and crooks escaped justice.
Again the Supreme Court acted to get more money. “The justice system is underfunded,” said Richard Wagner at To have to. If nothing is done, he said, judges will drop thousands more cases.
This method is not surprising when you consider that in 1997 the Supreme Court forced governments to give judges salary increases. Some provinces then reduced the emoluments of their judges, but the Supreme Court prevented them from doing so. This was a violation of the Charter, as if this document said that the government cannot lower the salaries of judges in times of austerity. The Court forced the establishment of salary committees, which decreed that taxpayers should pay more money to magistrates, even if they belong to the privileged classes. The consequence is that there is not enough money left to hire support staff working in our courts, which contributes to backlogs.
Nazism and racial segregation
Besides this situation, Wagner denies the partisanship of the magistrates. However, many are actively campaigning against the rights of Quebec’s national minority. Last year, for example, Bill 21 was partially invalidated by Judge Marc-André Blanchard. The fact that prior to his appointment he was a PLC donor would have had no impact on his outlook.
What about the arrival of Azimuddin Hussain at the Superior Court? As a lawyer, he argued that Bill 21 was comparable to the Nuremberg Laws, which led to the genocide of six million Jews, and further comparable to American racial segregation, under which 4,075 lynchings took place between 1877 and 1950. .
What would the highest magistrate of the country answer if the example of these two judges was submitted to him? He would surely retort that their partisanship and their political vision have in no way guided their actions. Probably no more than Mr. Wagner does it himself by threatening to abort thousands of lawsuits.
The Chief Justice here uses shameless blackmail to get more money, engaging in a political campaign incompatible with his office. In fact, he is exposing his insensitivity to the suffering of victims of crime.