We still need answers, but of a different kind

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2014 (4034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Four years, millions of dollars, a judge’s life in tatters and nobody involved in the inquiry into the conduct of Manitoba Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas can say anything good has come of the proceedings.

“Nothing,” said Karen Busby, a University of Manitoba law professor. “The issues are not going to be resolved in this case.”

It has been 51 months since a former client of Douglas’s late husband, Jack King, ignored a confidentiality agreement and went public with accusations Douglas was complicit in a scheme to have him have sex with her while King watched.

King died of cancer last April. Alexander Chapman, the former client who set this three-ring circus in motion, has left the country.

All that is left is Douglas, whose once promising career as a jurist will come to an end next spring, and the general sense something very wrong has occurred.

It is unsettling when the profession tasked with judging Canadians appears unable to properly judge itself.

The process in this inquiry has been lengthy, expensive and murky. Earl Cherniak, a Toronto lawyer who has acted as independent counsel for the Canadian Judicial Council in matters with other judges, said until this case, the CJC process appeared to work well. “I think it’s unquestionable that she has been very badly treated,” he said.

Perhaps the judicial profession is so wrapped up in legalese it couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Maybe it, like much of the public and the media, was blinded by words such as bondage and Internet porn.

This case spent far more time battling judicial applications, questions of jurisdiction and accusations of bias than it ever did considering the merits of the accusations.

Never mind that Douglas herself was a victim. Yes, she agreed to have explicit photographs taken, but her husband violated her trust when he posted them online without her knowledge. But somehow, those photographs are now being used to destroy her reputation and her career.

It seems to defy logic it could take this long to get to where we are today. Which is still not knowing the answers to the main questions. One answer we do have. Did Douglas sexually harass Alexander Chapman? Two independent lawyers hired by the CJC to present the case found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support Chapman’s contention Douglas knew what her husband was up to. It wasn’t even going to be included as a question for the current panel to consider.

But what about the other questions — the one that asks whether the very existence of explicit photos precludes someone from being fit to be a judge; or the one that asks whether she properly disclosed the existence of the settlement between King and Chapman to the committee vetting her judicial application and whether it should have prevented her from becoming a judge.

They are important questions for any number of reasons. Surely, Douglas isn’t alone in the legal profession for having participated in private, perfectly legal sexual adventures with her husband that included photographs being taken of her. And she definitely isn’t alone in having her trust violated, in being victimized by having explicit photos of her made public without her consent or knowledge.

Some critics believe Douglas got special treatment from friends on the panel vetting her application, that another lawyer from a lesser-known law firm would never have made it through with such marks on her resumé. Others say if the settlement was such a poorly kept secret in the legal community, how could it be used against her as blackmail?

This inquiry was supposed to sort that out, too. It did not.

Four years. Millions of dollars. A judge’s life in tatters.

Canada’s judicial community has some explaining to do.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca