I spent some of the morning listening to an American bankruptcy judge on a telephone call in show. The judges answered questions about the law in a sensible and modest fashion. Anyone listening would come away with a good impression of the U.S. law.
Canadian judges would not (indeed are banned from) doing such a show.
This is something that should be reconsidered -- Canadian judges, if allowed to speak publically, in a measured way, could do much towards clearing up the many misconceptions the public has of Canadian law.
3 comments:
Well.. the retort to that would be - Justice Gomery spoke out before the Gomery inquiry, which basically is one reason I believe the Federal Court threw out the conclusions of his inquiry due to prejudicial statements he made.
This isn't the US where judges get elected, either.. so I think the instances where they do speak out should be a bit more in unique scenarios.
While both point of views have some merit, my concern is how do we make Sitting Justices accountable for their misconduct.
As these are life time appointments, many justices become jaded over time....and there really is no system of accountability for their actions.
NOW, I DO WANT TO STRESS that I believe the overwhelmingly majority of justices are good, honest, hardworking, deliberate and thoughtful in their professions.
However, how do we deal with the very small percentage that are not. To lay a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council is to lay a complaint with their peers...clearly not an independant overview.
How often have they acted on complaints and reprimanded a Justice. Their initial reaction is to always back the sitting Justice.
Now...I don't pretend to have all the answers, but clearly the current system does not work and the actions of this very small minority goes unchallenged...and I believe this lack of accountability simply impairs the reputation of all justices.
Everyone loves it when people get together and share thoughts.
Great blog, stick with it!
Feel free to surf to my weblog - credit card cash advance 0
Post a Comment