Despite several requests to lift the veil on what has been dubbed the “secret trial” in Quebec, the Court of Appeal maintains the status quo and refuses to reveal more details about this case to the public.
In its redacted 57-page decision released Wednesday, the Court denied all requests, including those from the media, asking it to rescind the confidentiality orders and reveal more information about this criminal lawsuit against an informant. from police. No one, however, demanded to know his name.
The secret therefore remains on this cause mysteriously worded “Designated person v. Her Majesty the Queen” and for which we still do not know the name of the judge, those of the lawyers, the judicial district where she was heard and the police department which investigated.
When the existence of this shadow trial was revealed last March, a wave of indignation swept. Voices were raised to denounce this opaque way of proceeding, in particular those of the Minister of Justice of Quebec, Simon Jolin-Barrette, of the Barreau du Québec and even of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner.
Judicial debates must be able to be examined by the public, recalled the Bar, which specified that this principle is one of the pillars of democracy and contributes to maintaining the confidence of citizens in the justice system.
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For the Court of Appeal, this case highlighted “the problem of the coexistence” of two rules: the protection of the police informant and the principle of the publicity of legal proceedings.
But according to the three judges of the Court, the law and the case law are clear and “unequivocal” on this subject: the privilege of the informer must take precedence.
The Court explains that this privilege exists to protect those who cooperate with the police, and that it stems from the risk of revenge on the part of criminals. And then, this privilege – absolute and vital – serves the public interest, remind the judges.
“There can be no question of disclosing any information likely to identify Designated Person (the police informer) at the risk of putting her in danger. »
Even the most innocuous details are risky, the Court continues, especially if they fall into the hands of the people who associated with her. This is also the case for the identity of the judge, that of the lawyers in the file and of the police force involved, she decides, while agreeing that “this secret shocked”.
This information would risk breaking the protective envelope around the indicator, “because together or separately”, they “are here elements whose revelation would lead directly to Designated Person”.
In short, in its judgment on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal agreed that justice must be public, with this nuance: “There are exceptions and the present case is one of them, which is also distinguished by its unusual nature and which does not It is not, on the contrary, the symptom of a justice tempted by opacity”, write the three magistrates of the Court.
Protecting the informer does not demonstrate a willingness to hide things from the public, they add. And if the people involved in this case may have made mistakes, they acted with “the greatest honesty” and there is no reason to doubt their good faith.
The existence of this “phantom trial” was revealed in March by a previous judgment of the Court of Appeal. She had then pronounced a stay of proceedings in favor of a police informer who, for an unknown reason, found herself accused of a crime… which she had apparently herself denounced.
The Court then wrote to be shocked that this trial was held in the greatest secrecy, out of sight. Without this judgment of the highest court in Quebec, we would not even have known that he had indeed held.
“In sum, no record of this trial exists except in the memory of the individuals involved,” read the court’s judgment dated March 23.