Quebec does not have to pay more than $700,000 to Jean Charest, ruled the Superior Court in a case where the former prime minister sued the Quebec state for abuse of procedures in connection with the leaks at UPAC.
The former Liberal prime minister won a first round in a lawsuit against the Quebec government for violation of his private life, after documents from the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) were published by our Bureau of Investigation in from April 2017.
This information was collected as part of police surveillance of Mr. Charest and former liberal financier Marc Bibeau, as part of an investigation into the links between political financing and the awarding of public contracts. .
Our colleagues from the Bureau of Investigation had notably got their hands on the file drawn up by UPAC about Jean Charest, the list of his trips abroad and a request for disclosure of his passport.
The investigation has since been closed and no charges have been filed.
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At the end of a first trial, Quebec was ordered to pay $385,000 to Jean Charest for the disclosure of his personal information. UPAC, however, refused to apologize for its conduct in this matter.
After this first victory, Jean Charest now claimed an additional amount of $717,000, citing an abuse of procedure on the part of the Attorney General of Quebec (PGQ) in the handling of the case before the courts.
Leaks
His team of lawyers opposed two responses to Mr. Charest’s arguments in his request, in addition to asserting that Quebec had delayed providing him with documents.
Judge Gregory Moore rejected all of the claims in a judgment handed down last Tuesday. The former prime minister now has 30 days to appeal the case, if he wishes.
Thus, when Jean Charest points out that UPAC had not put in place measures to prevent an employee from being able to transfer documents externally without being identified, Judge Moore points out that the author of the leak has still not been apprehended and the investigation launched in 2018 is still ongoing.
It is therefore impossible to know how the documents passed through. “Mr. Charest presumes that UPAC did not put in place adequate security measures to protect his personal information because it ended up in The Montreal Journal and because UPAC admits that the leak came from internally,” writes Judge Moore.
Jean Charest also affirmed that Quebec had waited until the end of the trial to disclose that “UPAC refuses to be subject to the laws which protect personal information which is collected as part of its criminal investigations”.
The judge affirms this time that this is an “inexact interpretation” of the statements of the attorney general, who argued that UPAC has the right to share information between its members and with certain ministries.
Time limit
As for the assertion that Quebec delayed in transmitting certain documents, the Superior Court judge noted that Jean Charest requested numerous new documents before the trial.
“Despite the quantity of new documents, the PGQ agrees, during a management conference held on September 16, not to request the postponement of the trial which will begin in ten days,” notes the judge.
The timeline, he adds, “demonstrates that the PGQ did not take an unreasonable amount of time.”
At the time of publication, Jean Charest had not responded to our request for comment.
In Quebec, the office of the Minister of Justice refused to comment on the matter.
A ten-year saga
- April 2014: UPAC launches the Mâchurer investigation into allegations of illegal financing of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ).
- April 2017: Our Bureau of Investigation reveals numerous documents which demonstrate the extent of police surveillance of former Prime Minister Jean Charest.
- February 2022: UPAC closes the Mâchurer investigation, without bringing charges related to the financing of the PLQ.
- April 2023: The Superior Court forces the Quebec government to pay $385,000 to Jean Charest for invasion of his privacy, due to leaks of personal information.
- April 2024: Jean Charest fails in his second lawsuit against the Quebec state, where he claimed more than $700,000 for abuse of process.