EVIDENCE AGAINST VICE-ADMIRAL NORMAN HANDED TO A JUDGE.
Defence asking to see thousands of documents
OTTAWA • The first major battle in the criminal trial of Vice-admiral Mark Norman is over which government documents the defence team will be allowed to see — and the government now says it will let a judge decide.
Norman, the former second-in-command of the Canadian Forces, is facing one count of breach of trust over allegations he leaked secret cabinet information to stop the government from backing out of a contract to acquire a supply ship from Quebec’s Davie Shipbuilding.
His defence team is demanding the government disclose to them a massive trove of documents they say they need in order to mount Norman’s defence. Norman’s lawyers have issued subpoenas to seven federal departments and agencies, their requests encompassing as many as 135,000 documents.
At issue is whether the government will use its power under Section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act to declare some of those documents as cabinet confidences, and thus refuse to hand them over. Conservative MPS have been hammering the Liberal government in the House of Commons, demanding they release the documents to Norman. The Liberals have largely avoided engaging with the Conservatives, insisting they can’t comment on a matter before the courts.
During a court hearing Friday, Christine Mainville, a lawyer for Norman, said she had been informed yesterday that the government would not be exercising its Section 39 right, but would instead disclose all of the documents to the court and let a judge decide what should be secret.
However, she added that the defence remains suspicious the government will not follow through.
“Their position is still that the records should not be disclosed,” she said. “We also have no assurances that if the trial judge determines that these cabinet documents should be disclosed that they won’t then turn around and assert Section 39 or stay the proceedings to preclude that from happening ... So I just want to make clear for the record that Vice-admiral Norman is not further ahead today.”
A five-day hearing on Norman’s document disclosure request is scheduled to begin on Dec. 12.