Ordinary citizens should get more say in disciplining judges
OTTAWA — Ordinary citizens must get more say in disciplining judges accused of misconduct, a legal ethics group is urging federal officials scrutinizing how high court judges are judged.
The advice from the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics comes as the disciplinary inquiry for Federal Court Justice Robin Camp is to begin in Calgary Monday. He faces a reprimand for berating a 19-year-old woman during the trial of a man accused of raping her. Camp acquitted the man, but his ruling was overturned on appeal and a new trial is scheduled.
Then an Alberta provincial court magistrate, Camp has since acknowledged he was insensitive and his comments were inappropriate. He could be removed from the bench by the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), the federal watchdog for superior court chief justices and associate chief justices.
The case is one of three highprofile incidents in recent years involving alleged judicial misconduct. Justice Canada is reviewing the CJC’s disciplinary process.
The department posted an online discussion paper June 30 on reforming the system, including the need for transparency and accountability.
There was no public announcement of the paper’s release, nor was it highlighted on the department’s home page, say legal observers. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday.
At present, the only way for people who are neither judges or lawyers to participate is to be named to the sole lay position on CJC review committees that determine whether an alleged misconduct is serious enough to warrant the judge’s removal from office. If so, it recommends an inquiry committee be struck and hold a full hearing before three to five judges and lawyers, but no lay people.
Responding to the discussion paper, the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics wants ordinary people given full roles in regulating federal judges.
“This is largely a judge-driven process, you don’t have a strong sense of the public’s involvement in the process. It looks different from a lot of other modern, regulatory approaches,” said Alice Woolley, the association’s president and a University of Calgary law professor.
Another key issue is the need to clarify the applicable standards for judicial behaviour, she says. “There should be some sense in advance of what the outcome (of the complaint-disciplinary process) is likely to be. It is really hard to get a sense of what is really bad behaviour by a judge, what is somewhat concerning behaviour and what is behaviour that may seem odd to the public but is actually just fine,” she said.
“It is really important that judges be able to make those tough calls that might be unpopular, but independence cannot become a licence to do whatever.”
Now-retired Manitoba associate chief justice Lori Douglas was the subject of a CJC hearing into allegations she failed to disclose the existence of nude, online photographs of herself when she applied to become a judge in 2004, and that the photos could undermine public confidence in the justice system.
Douglas retired in 2015 after a settlement with the council that included abandoning the inquiry, which took more than three years and reportedly cost at least $3 million.