Guergis’ lawsuit tossed out
Judge rules PM has unfettered right to choose who sits in his cabinet
OTTAWA — An Ontario court has tossed out former Conservative cabinet minister Helena Guergis’s lawsuit against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative party over her 2010 expulsion from cabinet and caucus.
In a ruling released Friday, Judge Charles Hackland upheld the unfettered right of the prime minister to say who sits in his cabinet.
Even in the face of the Guergis’s allegations of a conspiracy in the Prime Minister’s Office to oust her, Harper’s decisions on cabinet were not a matter a court could rule on, Hackland said.
“The subject of this alleged conspiracy is conduct protected by the doctrine of Crown prerogative and is, therefore, beyond the jurisdiction of this court,” Hackland said in a written decision. “The plaintiff’s removal from caucus is similarly protected from review by the doctrine of parliamentary privilege and, on the same basis, is beyond review by this court.”
This, Hackland said, was a matter of settled law and established in previous cases.
Any judicial oversight of caucus membership “would undermine parliamentary privilege and subject this purely political decision- making to review by the courts,” Hackland wrote, granting most of a motion brought by the defendants in July.
“Ms. Guergis is disappointed with the decision and has instructed me to appeal,” her lawyer, Stephen Victor, said Friday.
Hackland’s ruling also said the prime minister can chose whomever he wanted to run in Guergis’s Simcoe- Grey riding, as “leaders of federal political parties in Canada are expressly authorized by statute to refuse the candidacy of any person seeking to run for that party.”
Guergis was bounced from cabinet and caucus when a private investigator brought allegations of criminal conduct — including fraud, extortion, and involvement in prostitution — to the party.
The Prime Minister’s Office never publicly disclosed the exact nature of these acts but Guergis claimed they included unproved allegations of associating with prostitutes and cocaine use.
Guergis and her husband, former Edmonton Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer, were the subject of a Toronto Star report alleging they had socialized with “busty hookers” and a Toronto businessman with a checkered history.
Guergis has always denied the allegations and, long after she lost her job, was cleared of any wrongdoing by the RCMP.
She had previously complained to the Canadian Human Rights Commission over her job loss but the commission said the complaint fell outside its jurisdiction.
Guergis, who served as Harper’s minister of state for the status of women, had argued in the Ontario Superior Court action that Harper and his aides allegedly engaged in unlawful acts in their alleged conspiracy against her and could be held accountable for their decision to remove her from cabinet, despite Crown privilege.
Hackland disagreed, writing, “I am of the opinion that the plaintiff’s contentions are wrong and, if sustained, would render meaningless this important privilege. The prime minister would be required to answer, in court, for the political decisions he makes, as to the membership of his cabinet.”
Along with Harper, the lawsuit named as defendants the Conservative Party itself, private investigator Derrick Snowdy, party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, Harper’s then- chief of staff Guy Giorno, and Harper’s principal secretary Ray Novak.
Also named were Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, her staffer Axelle Pellerin and Manitoba Conservative MP Shelly Glover.
Hackland struck out or dismissed the claims against all the defendants but in some cases gave Guergis the right to amend and refile her statement of claim within 30 days.
He also ruled that letters about the Guergis allegations sent by Novak to RCMP Commissioner William Elliott and the federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson were not defamatory, contrary to her claim.