Without taking to the barricades, the Chief Justice of Quebec politely asked on Thursday for better funding for the Court of Appeal, in the name of democracy.
Because funding has stagnated for years, argued Judge Manon Savard on Thursday, on the occasion of the judicial rentrée, the annual event which marks the official opening of the courts.
Quebec’s chief magistrate insists that more resources are needed for her court, and therefore more money to function properly. Not for the judges, she specifies, but to support her staff and especially for all citizens.
“The lemon cannot be squeezed forever,” she told a room full of judges and lawyers at the Montreal courthouse.
The Court of Appeal is not just a simple expenditure item in the government budget: ” [C’est] an investment in democracy,” she continued.
Despite this clear request, the tone of the judicial return was more positive this year than last year, far from the cry from the heart launched about the “glaring” lack of staff in the various courthouses of Quebec. In September 2023, the chief justices of all the courts had denounced the lack of employees, the delays and delays that were accumulating and the risk that criminals would be released because their trials could not take place within the prescribed time limits.
The Chief Justice of the Superior Court, Marie-Anne Paquette, even stated that “the situation is serious.”
It must be said that this year, the Barreau du Québec is celebrating its 175th anniversary, as is the Court of Appeal: the time was rather for celebrating accomplishments in the area of justice and those who gave speeches largely avoided talking about the pitfalls and challenges of the judicial system.
Chief Justice Paquette nevertheless stressed this year that she needed the support of the federal government “to have enough drivers to take the wheel.” She was thus signaling her desire to have a greater number of judges to hear cases, implying that those on the bench are already overloaded.
“Our shoulders are broad and strong, but they cannot carry everything,” she summed up.