JP should be fired, council says

Panel delivers toughest possible recommendation to attorney general

A Toronto justice of the peace should be fired for exploiting his job title and repeatedly inserting himself in a court case involving his partner, a discipline panel has recommended.

It was actually the second time that Tom Foulds, appointed to the bench in 1999, had been found guilty of judicial misconduct by a discipline panel over a conflict of interest. He had previously been chastised and suspended for seven days without pay in 2013 for interfer- ing in the health inspection of a friend’s restaurant. The recommendation that Foulds be sacked was delivered last week to the attorney general. It is the toughest penalty available to the Justices of the Peace Review Council, an independent body, and is rarely handed down.

“The hearing panel concludes that the actions of Justice of the Peace Foulds ... have eroded the confidence of the public in His Worship as a judicial officer beyond reclamation. In the process, the integrity of the judiciary and confidence in the administration of justice has also been damaged,” says the discipline panel’s decision.

The panel found Foulds re- peatedly tried to insert himself in the criminal case in which his friend-turned-partner, known as AA due to a publication ban, was allegedly assaulted by a person identified only as BB. The charges against BB were later stayed by the Crown.

Foulds signed what is known as the “information,” laying out the charges against BB, despite knowing who he was; asked Crown attorneys at the College Park courthouse about the case on more than one occasion as they tried to brush him away; and signed the subpoena compelling AA to testify.

“The actions were concluded to go well beyond a display of poor judgment,” the panel said in its decision last week.

“The conduct was found to constitute an exploitation of his role as a justice of the peace as His Worship used his position to facilitate access to Crown attorneys who were responsible for the prosecution of the BB matter.”

The panel, made up of a provincial court judge, a justice of the peace and community member, also exercised a power granted under Ontario law to recommend to the attorney general that Foulds be compensated $20,000 for legal costs stemming from the discipline hearing — less than half of the $49,800 bill put forward by his legal team.

Foulds’s lawyer, Mark Sandler, said the his client had no fur- ther comment on the panel’s decision.

A spokesperson for Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said the recommendation is being reviewed and will be conveyed to cabinet.

The process for removing a justice of the peace from office requires that an order-in-council be signed by the lieutenantgovernor. The last time that happened was in 2015, when Errol Massiah was fired for sexually harassing women at the Whitby courthouse.

Justices of the peace, who earn about $132,000 a year, preside over bail hearings, provincial offences court and sign search warrants, among other duties.