Judge overseeing case known for being ‘bold’ and acting ‘in timely fashion’
One thing lawyers seem to agree on when it comes to Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba is that he doesn’t like to waste any time.
That was made clear in court Tuesday when a provincial government lawyer expressed concern he may have difficulty responding to the materials from the various legal challenges to the government’s bill that slashed Toronto city council nearly in half.
“We’re not kicking this over from Aug. 31 right now,” Belobaba said, refusing to postpone an upcoming hearing date.
Bruce Ryder, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor, said Belobaba is a respected judge who is “willing to be bold where appropriate” and up to the challenge of determining whether the province’s new legislation, the Better Local Government Act, is unconstitutional.
Belobaba will be hearing arguments later this month from the City of Toronto and others who are challenging the bill, which upended an ongoing election by reducing the number of city wards to 25 from 47.
Appointed to the bench in 2005 and especially known in legal circles for his handling of class-action lawsuits, Belobaba has stood his ground in the past when governments have raised the prospect of delaying a case.
“He has consistently been a proactive case management judge, ensuring that the cases before him move forward in a timely fashion,” said Morris Cooper, one of the lawyers representing plaintiffs in a classaction lawsuit brought by Ontario survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
In that case — which involves Indigenous children, now adults, removed from their families and placed in non-Indigenous care beginning in the 1960s — Belobaba was firm with the federal government when it made a last-minute request for him to delay the release of his judgment pending settlement talks. A government lawyer had asked to schedule a motion before Belobaba to argue for a postponement of the release of his judgment. The case had already been dragging through the courts for years, and the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued strongly against any further delay.
Last year, Belobaba told the lawyer in an email obtained by the Star to “forget” about scheduling a motion and simply file it “IN WRITING with me directly.”
“I have never heard of a defendant succeeding in a motion to delay the release of a decision, but I am keeping an open mind and will review your motion in writing with care,” he wrote. “The ball is now in your court — I suggest you move quickly — thank you.” The government ended up abandoning its postponement request, and Belobaba went on to issue a stinging judgment days later that found the Canadian government should have taken reasonable steps to ensure the children taken from their homes did not lose their Indigenous identity.
“The Sixties Scoop happened and great harm was done,” Belobaba wrote in his 20-page ruling.
Belobaba was also in the news last year when he quickly refused to freeze the $10.5-million federal government payout to Omar Khadr, at the request of the widow of the U.S. soldier Khadr is accused of killing in Afghanistan.
He said there had been no evidence before him that Khadr intended to conceal his assets to avoid paying a massive award ordered against him by an American court.
Medical malpractice lawyer Paul Harte, who has appeared before Belobaba, said the judge has indeed been involved in many high-profile and complex cases.
“He’s a very involved and knowledgeable judge, who tries to obtain judicial efficiency wherever possible,” Harte said.