Judicial council will decide justice’s fate

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2010 (5875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The fate of an associate chief justice in Manitoba lies in the hands of her peers on the Canadian Judicial Council.

The CJC — of which Lori Douglas has been a member for just over a year — is investigating a sexual harassment complaint filed against Douglas July 15.

The accuser, Alex Chapman, has also filed a lawsuit in Manitoba against the judge, her husband and their former law firm.

Johanna Laporte, director of communications for the CJC, said the complaint is being reviewed by a senior member of the CJC conduct committee.

She said she cannot release the specific complaint but said Chapman himself "characterized it as sexual harassment and intimidation."

If the judge reviewing the complaint decides it has merit, it will be forwarded to a panel of five judges from the CJC who will assess the complaint and can recommend remedial action such as an apology by the judge, or counselling, or they can recommend the matter needs to go to a public inquiry.

That has only happened four times in the last 40 years, said Laporte, and in only one of those inquiries did the CJC recommend the judge be removed from office.

That was the case of Ontario Judge Paul Cosgrove, who stayed charges against a woman accused of killing her boyfriend and then accused police and prosecutors of violating more than 150 of the accused’s charter rights.

His decision was overturned on appeal and the CJC ultimately decided Cosgrove’s conduct in the case was so reprehensible, an apology would not be enough to overcome the harm he had done.

It recommended in March 2009 he be removed from the bench, something that can only be done by a vote of Parliament. Cosgrove resigned before that could happen, ending the first time in the history of Canada Parliament would have been asked to vote to remove a judge.

The CJC is made up of 39 judges, including all the chief and associate chief justices from each province, as well as a handful of federal judges and senior provincial judges.

The CJC receives approximately 160 complaints a year. About half of them are dismissed by the initial review by a member of the conduct committee either as frivolous or outside the scope of the council’s mandate.

Usually that is because the complaint is about a judge’s decision not their conduct and is a matter for appeal not the CJC.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca