(Ottawa) The Canadian judicial system is not immune to the abuses observed south of the border, and to avoid falling into the trap, elected officials must counter disinformation instead of fueling it, as we saw it in the National Assembly this year in the “person with a vagina” case, Chief Justice Richard Wagner warned Monday.
“Today we are seeing attacks on our judges and our institutions, something that we previously only saw abroad. One of the challenges that persists is countering misinformation,” said the chief justice of the country’s highest court during his annual press conference.
“Of course, in a democracy, we accept – and even want – that court decisions be subject to debate,” he continued. But “people should at least read the judgments before criticizing them,” Judge Wagner insisted in his opening statement.
He was referring to a ruling last March by the Supreme Court of Canada in which Justice Sheila Martin used the expression “person with a vagina” – once compared to a total of 67 times for the word “woman.”
In the National Assembly, the Minister of the Status of Women, Martine Biron, quickly seized upon it, having a unanimous motion adopted jointly with Liberal MP André A. Morin to denounce the choice of words. With hindsight, the Liberal Party of Quebec and Québec solidaire had expressed regrets.
“I will not talk about the individuals in question, but the fact remains that it is a good example of disinformation,” said the chief judge. Someone, an elected official, read an article, without perhaps checking the origin, which commented on one of our judgments, and gave it an erroneous meaning. »
“With this basic premise, she managed to convince other elected officials […] to condemn the wording of this decision, he added. If the person had read correctly, they would have noticed that never, under any circumstances, would the Supreme Court have wanted to devalue the notion of women in Canada, on the contrary. »
“This is a clear example of misinformation. And I find that dangerous, because we are talking about people in authority, and people who have not read the decision may believe that indeed, there is a certain meaning, a certain truth to that,” he said. -he decided in his first public comments on this story.
“Federal judges”
Politicians in the National Assembly were treated to another polite jab from the Chief Justice.
“There have been circumstances where elected officials have tried to overshadow decisions because they had been rendered by judges appointed by the federal government… well… obviously,” said the magistrate of the Supreme Court.
“The following week, the same judges appointed by the federal government rendered a decision favorable to this government from which the elected official came, and therefore, they became heroes,” he continued, insisting on the importance of maintaining the integrity and credibility of the justice system.
“This kind of gratuitous comment must be avoided,” he said.
Trump’s remarks
The integrity of the justice system is indeed under attack in the United States these days.
Could the remarks made by former President Donald Trump, who said he was the victim of a “rigged” trial after being found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying documents held against him, have echoes in the Canada?
“I will not comment on this particular situation, what is happening in this country. I have decided to stop understanding what is going on,” Chief Justice Wagner said with a smile, arguing that the nomination process was not tainted by the same partisan “pollution” as in the South of the border.