Video shows judge buying drugs: police
Judges demand respect for fellow jurist
• The three-member panel leading an inquiry into the conduct of Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Girouard listened attentively Monday as Marie Cossette, the independent counsel, led them through a crash course on the drug trade in northwestern Quebec.
“For the neophytes among us, who are not users,” Cossette asked a police officer about drug-filled baggies displayed in a photo, “what are the different bags?”
In fact, the whole reason the Canadian Judicial Council hearings are taking place is the allegation that at least one person in the room, Girouard, is anything but a neophyte. Following the withdrawal of three of the initial counts brought against him in March, Girouard is facing possible removal from the bench over five counts involving his alleged purchase and regular use of cocaine during his time as a lawyer.
The cocaine-filled Baggies on display Monday were seized by provincial police in October 2010 at the end of a major operation targeting organized crime in Quebec’s Abitibi region.
Girouard, who practised law in the Abitibi city of Val d’Or until his appointment to the bench in September 2010, was not targeted by the operation, known as Crayfish, but he got pulled into the affair after the fact when informants identified him as a customer. Quebec’s chief justice was informed of the scandal and filed a complaint against Girouard with the judicial council in 2012.
A judicial council document summarizing the allegations against him cites four sources who claim Girouard was a frequent consumer of cocaine in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It also alleges that just two weeks before he was made a judge in 2010, a security camera recorded him buying an illicit substance in the back office of a Val d’Or video store.
It is highly unusual for a judge to be facing the type of allegations that usually place petty criminals on trial. When the panel comprised of Richard Chartier, chief justice of Manitoba; Paul Crampton, chief justice of the Federal Court; and New Brunswick lawyer Ronald LeBlanc entered the room as the hearings began, LeBlanc bowed his head in deference to Girouard. Chartier sternly corrected Cossette for referring to Girouard as “Mr. Girouard” instead of “Judge Girouard.”
As he sat next to his lawyers Monday, Girouard was more often playing the role of counsel than accused, whispering advice as they questioned witnesses and made arguments.
But in a voir dire hearing held to argue the admissibility of the security video, Girouard took the stand and commented on his situation for the first time since the allegations surfaced.
The video, which has not yet been shown in court, depicts an exchange between Girouard and Yvon Lamontagne, who was running a drug operation out of the office of his video store. A Sûreté du Québec sergeant-supervisor who viewed the silent video “concluded with certainty that this was a usual drug transaction between the two men seen on the recording, Mr. Girouard and Yvon Lamontagne,” the allegations state.
Girouard, who is contesting all the allegations against him, said he had gone to the video store because Lamontagne was a client and he wanted to talk about a tax case in which he was representing him.
“I don’t know if it’s the same in the big cities,” he told the panel. “I would often go to a client’s office.” He said he expects images from meetings with any clients to remain private. If pictures of him meeting with drug dealers or pedophiles in the course of his legal work became public, it would be
Girouard was more often playing counsel than accused
damaging to his reputation and hurtful to his family, he said.
Cossette said there was more than legal business being conducted in the office. She said Girouard cannot argue that his privacy is being violated when he chose to meet Lamontagne in the back of a video store, with the office door open and a clerk and customers just a few steps away.
L ouis Masson, one of Girouard’s lawyers, argued that the video should not be allowed into evidence because it amounts to unlawful surveillance. It was seized when police raided Lamontagne’s video store in October 2010 and an investigator only discovered Girouard on it a year later. Admitting the video into evidence “would violate the fundamental rights of Judge Girouard,” Masson said, and unfairly tarnish the reputation of a man who led “an exemplary, unblemished career.”
The panel has reserved its decision on the admissibility of the video. The hearings continue Tuesday.