Losing temper could cost judge
A Quebec Court judge found himself before a panel of his peers who will determine if he was out of line when he yelled at a prison guard during a hearing at the Montreal courthouse last year.
Judge Jean-Paul Braun, who retired this year, appeared before the Conseil de la magistrature du Québec on Monday and is scheduled to have another hearing before the judicial council that oversees the behaviour of judges, for comments made in a different case, in the coming weeks.
On April 20, 2017, Braun was assigned to one of the so-called “high volume” rooms at the courthouse where judges routinely find themselves presiding over a roll with more than 40 accused scheduled to have formality hearings.
The rooms can sometimes become chaotic, especially when an accused suddenly decides to plead guilty and changes the overall schedule.
That was what Braun was dealing with when a lawyer representing a couple from France, charged with attempting to smuggle tobacco into Canada, informed Braun that the case could be resolved if the lawyer could talk to the man and the woman together at the courthouse. The lawyer informed Braun that the matter was urgent because the couple’s three children were in France.
While sitting in the morning, Braun spent 10 minutes trying to arrange the meeting but was informed it was impossible. An internal rule at the Montreal courthouse does not allow people of different genders who are detained to be in the same area.
Braun was aware that judges in similar situations were able to order that empty courtrooms be used for lawyers to meet briefly with more than one client.
When the case returned before Braun in the afternoon he had hoped the problem could be resolved. But when he asked Yolanda Fleurimar, a detention-centre guard who was unaware of what happened in the morning, if arrangements were made she replied that the rules that guide her work wouldn’t allow it.
“You have no power here,” Braun yelled as he reacted to Fleurimar and suggested she could be charged with contempt of court. “Look here, the boss here is me!”
Ultimately the accused were able to use an empty courtroom to meet with their lawyer and they pleaded guilty to the charges they faced the same day. Recordings of what Braun said in the interim revealed he felt bad about losing his temper.
“Anger is not a good counsellor,” Braun later told a lawyer involved in the case. He also said that he rarely gets angry but he didn’t apologize to Fleurimar in person.
On Monday, Fleurimar, who is now studying law, said she decided to file a complaint against the judge after having talked to her superior.
“I felt humiliated — like the position I held meant nothing,” Fleurimar told the council. Braun did not testify at his hearing. His lawyer, Louis Belleau, characterized what happened as a “regrettable” situation.
Pierre Laurin, a lawyer who argued on behalf of the council, said Braun violated the ethics code of his profession by not maintaining the serenity of his courtroom. He asked that the judge receive a reprimand. The council will deliberate before delivering their decision.
In October, Braun is scheduled to have another hearing to address comments he made concerning a sexual assault victim. On May 3, 2017, while convicting a taxi driver named Carlo Figaro of having sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl, the judge commented on her appearance and whether she might have been “charmed” by Figaro before he licked her face and groped her.
When the comments were published by the Journal de Montréal, Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée reacted by saying she found the comments unacceptable and said that she would file a complaint with the council.