Juridics: Fed Canada: Libs politicize ameliorative improvements of Advisory Commissions for the appointment of judges

At last the minority Harper govt of Canada has brawt in proposed legislation to improve the process of appointing Federal Judges. The predecessor Lib govt had tried to dodge the patronage and stacking system that had long left Canada with a single-party judiciary on the Fed level, but it's dodge had proved dodgey, in that the then-Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, arranged for two new justices to be appointed under the guise of democratic scrutiny, while failing to allow the justice critics of the other three parties in parliament to question and probe the nominees in public.

My colleague Politicarp carried forward a discussion of the situation that prevails in Canadian legal philosophy, jurisprudence, and practice down to the particulars of such matters as the sentencing of criminals and the attentive regard for their victims. Since his most recent post on Feb23,2k7, he analyzed the slanted law-journalism that typifies the law industry in Canada.

A recent Liberal Party press release (Feb12, 2k7) gives the impression that there's a level playing field in Canada's law schools, lawyers guilds, and jurisprudence. But this disingenuous self-portrait is h+ly selective in examining Liberal practice over the last 40 years, as to its impact on the content and trends of jurisprudence as judgments are actually handed out. The main facts are the facts about Liberal law-making and Liberal law-judging cumulatively, not a few counter-practices since a Conservative minority govt has sawt to exercize its responsibilities alternatively.

Stacking the Courts threateans Judicial Independence

By attempting to stack the courts with ideologically-based nominations, the Conservative minority government is putting the independence of Canada’s judicial system at risk, the Liberal Opposition said today.

“Our courts are recognized around the world for their competence, fairness and independence, but today Canadians are expressing grave concerns about the Prime Minister’s obvious maneuvers to drastically change the composition of the committees that select our judges,” said Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion.

“Canadians want our judges to continue being selected without political or ideological interference. Will the Prime Minister stop his shameless attempts to stack the committee with his ideologue friends?”

This is Dion's effort to mask over the monophilosophical system established by the Libs, in order to create ideological uniformity in the courts and , thus, to prevent law-philosophy to law-philosophy dialogue intrinisic to the pluralist approach that Canadians would want and have a r+t to, if only they knew it could exist.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made it no secret that they wish to appoint judges who are more favourable to the social conservative viewpoint in the future.

Again, Dion's poisonous selectivity. He neglects to acknowledge that among the several conservative philosophies (for instance, those of well-trained jurists who could be labelled "socially conservative") will enrich the overall jurisprudential dialogue by interacting with other well-trained jurists some of whom would continue to be labelled "Liberal," while others of whom also appointed thru the new system of Judicial Advisory Commissions proposed by Harper would lead to a very positive deeply-pluralist sytem of adjudication more strenuously fair to all Canadians. Dion's publicists continue their artless dodgery:

During the last election campaign Prime Minister Harper told reporters:

"The reality is that we will have for some time to come a Liberal senate, a Liberal civil service, at least senior levels have been appointed by the Liberals, and courts that have been appointed by the Liberals. So these are obviously checks on the power of a Conservative government." (CPAC, January 17, 2006)

What should Harper do? Lay down contented with the distortions introduced into Canadian jurisprudence by 4 decades of Liberal hegemony over the courts and the way they think and judge? -- indeed, how they collectively view "merit" in the profession?

Rather, he realistically points to the checks and balances that are already overabundantly in place to preserve that very Liberal hegemony over the courts, checks and balances (often unfair) that Conservs of all stripes must take as the condition of existence in addressing the country's legal needs for some time yet to come. Wheareas the Liberals themselves have not had to face any such checks and balances for all that time of their overlordship. And were they catapulted back into power they could steam ahead with their already-entrenched court-control system and their established mono-minded anti-dialogical preferred jurisprudence.

There's nothing wrong with Harper's statement, despite the self-serving twists of the Lib publicists who want at all costs to smother his ins+t into that very establishment of a Leftist Liberal jurisprudence that has made a shambles of the professions of law-teaching, law-journalism, and jurisprudence of judges in our courts.

Liberal Deputy House Leader Marlene Jennings pointed out the Conservative government has since made quick work to appoint their ideological counterparts to the courts system and rectify this so-called “Liberal check.”

“Within months of taking office, the Conservatives began stacking the bench with their friends: the former President of their party in Quebec, the Conservative Co-Chair from New Brunswick, a Conservative fundraiser from Alberta and even someone who back-stopped a legal defence fund for the Public Safety Minister,” said Ms. Jennings.

What?--only 4 Conservs to stand against the cross-country Liberal horde in the country's judgeships? Is that all Marlene can come up with? It's obvious that she simply has no case. But even in citing this paltry dilution of the wall-to-wall Liberal jurisprudence, Marlene (a television character) catches herself in her own faux pas, realizing that this is not the dominant Conserve trend because the Harper govt had to finish its research and preparations to develop the Lib-initiated Judicial Advisory Commissions, precisely in order to ameliorate the JACs' deficiencies and make them structurally more responsive to the norm of public dialogical justice. Something Marlene and Stephane seem incapable of fathoming.

Again, precisely to that end, Harper slowed down the filling of vacancies until a more just structure could be developed for the Lib's jerry-rigged JACs that were slapped together in the spirit of Paul Martin's appointments to the Supreme Court without any honest public questioning and probing of the nominees--a doubleheader, two new judges who were stacked into the Court most shamelessly. Without even acknowledging the shameful Lib judicial legacy, Marlene prattles on:

“This government allows more and more judge positions to remain vacant and all the while they are looking at the list of defeated candidates to fill their positions [she assumes that none of these would have sufficient "merit" to become judges] while turning up their noses at qualified applicants [she assumes that only her kind could possibly be qualified]. In other words, it should be a conservative or no one.”

Bull! This simply doesn't follow from her premises, even before they're decoded of her doublespeak. Marlene's plop should not cow us.

Not only does this new process introduce partisanship into our court system, it also has created a huge backlog of judicial appointments waiting to be filled, resulting in delays and, at worst, the denial of justice for Canadians in our court system.

Not a bull now, not a cow now, but a Chicken Licken screeching that the sky is falling.

“The public wants independent voices, voices beyond politics,” said Liberal MP Ken Dryden. “The Prime Minister clearly doesn't trust independent voices. Doesn't he have the confidence that he can win the day if there are voices beyond his influence?”

I think he does, and what's patently clear is that this advancement of independent voices in the judiciary has never been the intent of the Libs in establishing their mono-minded anti-dialogical system of appointsments to the courts, without believable nominations and without public scrutiny and examination before finalizing apppoinments. Even Ken Dryden's brain is not so dry as to miss the lack of independence in the Lib legacy of law, judging, and sentencing.

Canada’s Constitution calls for a clear separation of powers between Parliament, the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. As Liberals we believe that judges should be selected based on the over-riding principle of merit and not on the political leanings of the government of the day.

Mono-mindedness and anti-dialogue, enshrining one law-philosophy so that its judges never have to share thawts with the fine minds of alternative jurisprudential orientations, case by case, is not a principle of merit--no matter how much doublespeak Ken amasses to make his passes.

By stacking judicial nomination committees [JACs] and benches based on candidates’ ideological views, the Harper government risks transforming the courts into arenas where political battles are fought, rather than justice is pursued.

No matter how much the Libs try to hide their dubious record, fewer and fewer Canadians are conned by their legacy of self-serving abuse of the judiciary over most of 40 years.

The live-linked article (accessible by clicking our headline) contains numerous valuable facts, and far more balance, than the propaganda put out by the Liberal Party and the Law Times cited earlier by Politicarp's blog-entry. An actual glimmer of common fairness shines thru the headline-linked article here, by Cristin Schmitz, "Conservatives aim to replace judicial 'Charterphiles' with 'Charterphobes'," (Mar9,2k7) Lawyers Weekly; nevertheless, as the just-mentioned epithets prove, a hateful bias is still present and even brawt to the forefront by the latter publication's headline writer. The Charter can be loved in toto by those jurists who can not conscientiously read into it the distortion of the meaning of marriage (the meaning as intended by the Charter writers--unless, God forbid!, the whole text were a sham from the beginning and thus would be quite worthy of being hated): the distortion of the meaning of marriage such as we have seen in the massed ranks of Liberal antipluralist antidialogical judges, on all levels of the Canadian court system. May the imbalance that results from their inflated numbers recede, may judges adhering to alternative law-philosophies increase on the basis of merit, so that a fairer and more honest system may result.