Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m M A r C h 2 0 1 5 27 here were two casualties of the Canadian Judicial Council's inquiry into Justice Lori Doug- las. The first was Lori Douglas, by all accounts a competent and hard working associate chief justice of the Family Divi- sion of the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench. The other was the Canadian Judicial Council itself, which found itself bat- tered and bruised in a four-year inquiry that turned the mirror on itself and its procedures. The Canadian Judicial Council is all about confidence — confidence in the judiciary's independence, competence, integ- rity, and underlying fairness. Over the course of the inquiry into Douglas' past and her fitness to remain on the bench, the confi- dence of both the judiciary and the public in the CJC was dam- aged in procedural wrangling and public disputes. The damage to the CJC's policies and procedures was so great that even before the Douglas inquiry limped to a bloody conclusion last Novem- ber, the CJC made a public call for submissions on how it can do a better job. The inquiry into Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas had become an inquiry into the Canadian Judicial Council. Prior to 1971, s. 99 of the BNA Act governed judicial disci- pline, simply saying, "Judges of the Superior Courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Gov- ernor General on Address of the Senate and House of Commons." The issue of procedural fairness came to a head in the 1960s when the fitness of Ontario Supreme Court justice Leo Landreville to remain on the bench was questioned. He had been involved in a shady stock deal in the 1950s while he was mayor of Sudbury before his appointment to the bench. Formal charges of corrup- tion were thrown out, but a federal inquiry was established and the commissioner concluded that whether or not Landreville had been guilty of corruption, his evasiveness in subsequent securities inquiries was "a serious violation of his personal duty as a Justice." A special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons appointed in late 1966 recommended to the governor general that he remove Landreville as a judge. Shortly thereafter Landreville tendered his resignation to avoid being dismissed. As a postscript, Landreville spent the next decade relitigating the legitimacy of the procedure used to force his resignation. In 1977, the Federal Court finally agreed with Landreville that the commission of inquiry improperly exceeded the terms of its original inquiry. It was a hollow victory, as 10 years had passed and his resignation stood. The CJC's materials say the "procedure followed in the Lan- dreville case, notably regarding the fair treatment of the judge, was the subject of significant criticism and this was one of the factors motivating the adoption of what is now Part II of the Judges Act." It was the end of Landreville but the beginning of the Canadian Judicial Council. CJC CREATED IN 1971 A creature of statute, the Canadian Judicial Council was created in 1971 under the Judges Act with "the mandate to promote efficiency, uniformity, and accountability, and to improve the quality of judi- cial service in the superior courts of Canada." The principal part of the CJC's legislative mandate is to review any complaint or allega- tion made about any of the more than 1,100 federally appointed judges, replacing the ad hoc inquiry process used in Landreville. The council is chaired by the chief justice of Canada, who pre- sides over 38 other council members, who are the chief justices and associate chief justices of Canada's superior courts, the senior judg- es of the territorial courts, and the chief justice of the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada. There are no lay members on the CJC. Complaints against sitting judges come from a variety of sourc- es, including litigants or the criminally accused, unhappy with their up-close and personal encounters with the pointy end of justice, and lawyers or concerned members of the public. Requests to review a judge's conduct can also come from a provincial attorney general or the federal minister of justice. Complaints can be made anonymously. T The Canadian Judicial Council's opaque, old-fashioned, and even unfair system of dealing with complaints about judges needs some serious modernizing. By Stephen Lautens window Martin O'neill

• Cover