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 N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 31 quickly recused themselves, citing "the exceptional circumstances of this affair." On July 14, barreau vice president Asselin took the unusual step of writing a lengthy open letter in a rebuttal to an editorial in Le Devoir that called the decision to suspend the president as "false and manifestly illegal." Asselin defended the board's actions and rejected Khuong's conspiracy theory and the editorialist's call for all the board members to resign and new elections to be held. "Respect for ethical guidelines is not a popularity contest, and their violation cannot be resolved by an election," Asselin wrote. Khuong followed through on her threat of legal action on July 22. In addition to the demand to be reinstated as bâtonnière, her 317-paragraph statement of claim sought $95,000 in damages to her reputation from the barreau and 13 board members. The barreau dismissed the suit as being "filled with wrongful facts, false- hoods, and pretentious elements." The next day, nearly 140 lawyers, all of them Khuong supporters, signed a petition calling on the regulator to organize a special general assembly to discuss the issue. Forced to comply by a regulation that allows for assemblies on petitions with more than 100 members, the barreau scheduled the meeting for 5 p.m. on Aug. 24 at the Sheraton Centre in Laval, right next to the Simons store where Khuong was arrested. In an effort to find a non-judicial solution to the impasse, the barreau and Khuong agreed to mediation with former chief justice François Rolland on July 30. But the effort failed. "It was a waste of time," said Khuong, who was in Las Vegas and partici- pated by phone. "No one moved from their positions." The saga took another unexpected turn a week before the Laval meeting when the barreau suddenly announced it was launching a countersuit seeking $90,000 in damages to its repu- tation. After filing the action in Quebec City, the barreau's law- yer, Raymond Doray, told journalists on the courthouse steps that he had evidence of a second shoplifting incident involving Khuong at a Simons store in the provincial capital in March 2014. For Khuong, who immediately denied the charge, the alleg- ation was the cruellest blow yet. "When I heard it I couldn't breathe, it was like I'd been punched in the stomach," she said, the smile gone from her face. "I didn't know what they were talking about. But it made me look like I was a criminal [and] really shook my parents and my husband and kids. But I was determined to stay strong and go on." 'A really well-run circus' Her morale got a huge boost a few days later at the extraordinary meeting in Laval. Presided over by former Quebec Court of Appeal judge Pierre Dalphond, now a senior counsel in the Montreal office of Stikeman Elliot LLP, the three-hour meeting attracted 1,000 law- yers, including high-profile figures such as Anne-France Goldwater and Jean-Pierre Ménard, and Latour, who made a long and vibrant defence of Khuong. One attendee — Montreal lawyer Pierre-Hugues Miller, who took time from his summer vacation to go "out of curiosity, because this thing had caused so much commotion within the bar" — called the meeting "a really well-run circus." It notably ended with three resolutions to reiterate confidence in Khuong, and to task both the barreau's syndic and the minister of justice to investigate the non-judicial program leak. The next day, the director of the Ministry of Justice's depart- ment in charge of the non-judicial program responded to the bar's request. It noted that only the date, name, and birth date of the person involved with an infraction is inscribed in the program's registry, and suggested others could be responsible for leaks because "the circumstances are not only known to the police force that car- ried out the investigation but also the complainant and witnesses." That makes sense to former Quebec bâtonnier Gérald R. Trem- blay, of McCarthy Tétrault LLP's Montreal office. "The facts of a case are not self-destructive," he told Canadian Lawyer. "Nothing prevents people who were involved in the event from talking about it. People are people, and Quebec is a small place. The incident was sure to come out." According to Tremblay, Khuong should have been forthcoming about her arrest when it happened, and certainly before she put forward her candidacy to become bâtonnière. He likened her case to Richard Therrien, who was removed from the bench in 1998 for hiding his pardoned conviction and year in jail for harbouring members of the militant separatist group Le Front de Libération du Québec during the 1970 October crisis. "Being bar president is a top slot in the profession and is great for your career and visibility," said Tremblay. "But jobs like that carry a higher duty of transparency than most. Like the Therrien case clearly shows, people aspiring to such positions should tell people about the skeletons they have in their closets." Another blow Khuong's legal case also took a blow on Aug. 28 when Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Beaupré rejected her application to be reinstated immediately to the head of the regulator. In his written decision, the justice argued that normal operations at the barreau would be disrupted if Khuong was reinstated, and that bringing her back early would do nothing to correct the current crisis. Beaupre also said it was unclear if the barreau's board had surpassed its jurisdiction in suspending her, as Khuong's lawyer had argued. But the judge did accept her request to have the barreau's ad hoc committee suspend its investigation until that question was resolved in the trial, which was scheduled to begin in early October. "Nothing prevents people who were involved in the event from talking about it. People are people, and Quebec is a small place. The incident was sure to come out." GÉRALD TREMBLAY, McCarthy Tétrault LLP

• Cover