Ottawa's justice fiasco (BARF ALERT - endorsement of judicial activism)

Toronto (Red) Star ^ | 11/15/06

[Heartofsong83]

Ottawa's justice fiasco Nov. 15, 2006. 01:00 AM

Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to find a new justice minister. Vic Toews's serial assaults on judicial independence risk shaking confidence in his government.

No less a figure than Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who heads the Canadian Judicial Council of senior judges, handed Toews a rare public rebuke last week for compromising the independence of panels that recommend people for judgeships.

And Canadian Bar Association president Parker MacCarthy voiced an equally firm protest on behalf of his 37,000 members.

Their concerns are well-founded.

Toews is no stranger to controversy. In the past he has mused about hauling 10-year-olds into criminal court. He has tried to tie judges' hands by limiting their discretion in sentencing. And he ended funding that helped women, minorities and the disabled argue in court for equality rights under the Constitution.

Now, without properly consulting Parliament or the legal community, Toews wants to give Ottawa more clout on the Judicial Advisory Committees that vet candidates for more than 1,000 federal judgeships.

At present, the panels consist of seven people. There is a judge/chair, and three federal "appointments at large" who are balanced by two members of the legal profession and a provincial or territorial member. Toews wants the right to name a fourth "at-large" panellist from the police, to include their view.

At the same time, Toews wants to change the way the panels operate. The chair would be expected not to vote in cases where the panel cannot agree by consensus to put forward a recommendation for appointment, and is forced to hold a vote.

That would give Ottawa's four appointments the ability to push forward their preferred candidates to the minister for appointment, if they choose to vote as a block.

Apart from tilting the panels toward seeing things through the government's lens, Toews's tinkering is unnecessary.

If Ottawa wants police represented, the minister can use one of the three at-large appointments. There is no need to create a fourth position, except to strengthen Ottawa's hand.

This is just what many Canadians feared would happen with a Harper government, namely it would find ways to push forward judges who were more deferential to the Conservative "law and order" agenda: "tougher" on crime and less attentive to the Charter of Rights.

This scheme will "stack the deck" in favour of whoever runs the government and create more opportunity for the very patronage that Toews decried in opposition, MacCarthy rightly points out.

That will "compromise the independence of the advisory committees," warns the Judicial Council, which wants a "meaningful consultation" before any tinkering is done.

The first consultation Harper should hold is to replace Toews with someone who commands the confidence of the nation's leading justices and lawyers, and who believes in publicly debating changes to a legal system that has served us well.

[Heartofsong83]

No surprise from the Toronto Red Star. Judicial activism is the LAST thing we need.

[goldstategop]

The Liberals stacked the courts with leftist judges during their 12 years in power. Somehow the Toronto Star was never upset about that. Its only when Conservatives try to rectify the imbalance on Canadian courts that the newspaper raises a hue and cry. Spare me.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[headsonpikes]

The lawyers, the commies and the Red Star are all against him????

He must be a man.

[GMMAC]

REALITY CHECK:

Even if Canadians elect massive & consecutive Conservative parliamentary majorities, how is the 'Court Party's' effectively criminal conspiracy against our fundamental rights & liberties to be undone?

Trudeau-inspired socialist politicians & scheming lawyers have constructed an evil, essentially secret, web of inter-connected, star chamber-like entities which methodically rubber stamp none but their own approved candidates to sit on every Judicial Bench & so-called 'human rights' body in the nation.

Blatant conflicts of interest mean nothing to Party operatives:
Witness Anil Pandila, Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission honcho & ruthless imposer of the radical gay agenda, also simultaneously sitting on both the Provincial Law Society's Equity/Diversity Diversity Committee and the Federal Judicial Advisory Committee.

Once duly anointed, total adherence to the 'Party line' is reinforced through mandatory on-going indoctrination in anti-majority bigotry & radical special interest pandering via the shadowy National Judicial Institute.

Morally bankrupt legalist hacks can openly flaunt their biases with bold impunity since Party discipline & related ideological purity are enforced by farcical Judicial Councils overwhelmingly comprised of trusted Judicial initiates and a few loyal Party cadres masquerading as representatives of the public.

As an example of this institutionalized non-accountability, during the Bob Rae years one of the mere two lay appointees permitted to sit on Ontario's Judicial Council to allegedly "uphold the public interest" was one time NAC head, later rabble.ca founder & habitually tax funded radical feminist parasite Judy Rebick!

ALSO SEE:
Supreme Court 'absolutely corrupt': prof

PING!