Premiers should keep thumb off scales of justice

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This article was published 14/03/2024 (917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

That’s why statues of Lady Justice show her wearing a blindfold — because justice is supposed to be unbiased, and unaffected by the status, politics or appearance of those who stand accused before her.

It’s a noble goal, albeit one with some significant weaknesses. It’s hard to argue, for example, that a rich defendant, able to hire the best of lawyers, is in the same boat as an ordinary citizen.

But imagine if the odds were stacked against you, because of the personal politics of the judge you were appearing in front of.

Enter Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

Ford has repeatedly defended his appointment of two former political aides to the provincial committee that selects candidates to be recommended for positions at provincial court judges. Ford argues that it’s his right to pick judges who will be “tough” on crime.

Ford says that he was elected “to get like-minded people in appointments,” and that doing so through stacking the committee set up to select candidates for judgeships is an acceptable way to do that.

But justice isn’t a team sport. We shouldn’t be selecting judges based on their team colours, or their personal politics or outlooks. They are selected to enforce existing laws fairly, not to use their political views to tilt the scales of justice.

Ministers of justice at the federal and provincial level do select judges — but they select them from lists of candidates put together by panels of jurists, lawyers and members of the public. They don’t just get to reach out and tap their friends and acquaintances — friends that might, well, owe their benefactors something.

That’s the reason for that distance between the political and judicial system.

Suborning the judicial process should earn you an appearance before a judge, not the right to appoint the judges you like.

If Premier Ford has an issue with the ways laws under provincial purview are enforced, he has the political power to change those laws — or, in the case of the Criminal Code, to make very public representations to the federal government on why those changes should be made. He is, after all, the premier of the largest and most powerful province in the country.

Judges — independent, impartial judges — would then get the opportunity to apply those new laws, and also decide whether the legal changes Ford envisages as necessary go beyond what’s permissible under the Canadian constitution.

Instead, Ford feels it’s proper to take an end-run around the legal system.

Where does that lead? Well, look south. It’s far from uncommon to see a story on judicial decisions in the United States that includes details about the name of the president that appointed the judge making the decision — an implicit suggestion that personal politics plays a role in how American judges reach their decisions. And a clear admission that American justice is not blind.

Think of it another way: the courts are often the only way to challenge decisions of governments. How fairly would you feel you would be treated, if your case against a government decision was being heard by a jurist personally selected by that same government?

If Ontario Premier Doug Ford truly believes that he’s just doing what he was elected for, he’s wrong.

It’s a prime example of using the end to try and justify the means.

It’s stacking the deck to try to win the game.

And it isn’t justice.

Remember Lady Justice and her blindfold? In her right hand, she holds high a set of scales, signifying the critical importance of only weighing the evidence and argument in a case.

Premier Doug Ford has admitted he wants a big, fat political thumb to tilt those scales.

There’s no place for that in our justice system.