Considered unprecedented in Quebec judicial history, the Jacques Delisle affair demonstrates how our justice system is likely to operate at two speeds when the time comes to benefit from full defense.
“Whether for Mr. Delisle as much as for the system, it must have cost an extraordinary fortune,” observed lawyer Rénald Beaudry in an interview on Wednesday, regarding the range of procedures used.
We had just learned that after 15 years of this legal saga, the ex-judge, accused of the murder of his wife, had decided to plead guilty to manslaughter.
This is quite a twist, considering that the ex-magistrate has always proclaimed his innocence. He nevertheless continues to support the theory of his wife’s suicide, which was contested by the prosecution.
Numerous procedures
Lawyer René Verret also argued, in our pages, that although unusual and unprecedented taken together, all of the steps taken represented the strictest right of the accused to a full defense.
- Listen to the column by Karine Gagnon, political columnist at JDM and JDQ via QUB :
Of course, Jacques Delisle had the right, like any citizen, to a full defense. This could justify all the steps he took, in the Court of Appeal and in the Supreme Court, and by filing a request for ministerial review in Ottawa.
Go for the principle.
Deep pockets
But in reality, very few people could have afforded the best lawyers and numerous international experts, as was the case for Jacques Delisle. Poor people, we can well imagine, would have quickly run out of financial means and would probably never have been able to go that far.
Or otherwise, they would have taken so long to raise the funds to carry out so many steps that they would never have gotten there in their lifetime.
So does this mean that you have to have deep pockets to offer yourself full defense? The Delisle case suggests that this may be the case, and it is shocking.