Since taking over as justice minister, Simon Jolin-Barrett hasn’t missed an opportunity to clash with Quebec court chief justice Lucie Rondeau.
Posted at 6:00 am
I have often proved him wrong for his rigidity, lack of practical understanding and forays into the legal domain.
But this time he was right to be angry.
In a union coup of sorts, Judge Rondeau has decreed that starting this fall the number of sitting days for judges of the Criminal and Penal Division will be reduced. 41 new judges will need to be appointed – a 25% increase in the workforce, which currently stands at 160.
If the government does not comply, the delay will increase immediately, cases will be adjourned and possibly stopped due to “unreasonable delays”.
It goes without saying that the Judiciary is independent and conducts itself within its competence. But independence of the judiciary should not be confused with the sovereignty of the judges who, as far as we know, do not levy taxes.
Accused, victims, witnesses… to what extent can the court decide to reorganize its work without considering any impact on state resources?
It is a very delicate game, even a very dangerous one, which consists in using one’s managerial independence to pressure the Treasury Board through a simple decree. Many other state institutions seek to impose government appointments. Ask the police…
The Quebec court has long called for the appointment of additional judges. After the Jordan ruling in 2016, the number of judges on the court increased from 290 to 319, according to the Justice Department. Half of these 319 judges are assigned to the Criminal and Penal Division. While the Quebec court hears almost all criminal cases, the Superior Court essentially only deals with jury trials, which represent a small fraction of cases.
You should know that the judges of the Civil Division work “one to one”. If they sit to hear a trial for a week, they deliberate for a week to prepare their cases and write their judgments.
As their tasks are different and less drafting is required, their colleagues in the criminal and penal department do “two for one”. Or two weeks spent sitting for a week of discussions.
There have been complaints about work overload for some time. Criminal law has experienced a kind of inflation and complexity without precedent since the Charter (1982), but especially in the last twenty years.
In a report written last winter, retired judge Maurice Galarno describes everything that has made their job more burdensome — constant constitutional requests, defendants’ mental health issues, media coverage, etc.
Anyone who has attended the courts can attest to this observation: Being a judge in the criminal and penal sector is now very complicated.
But we can say the same for teachers, police, parents…
Above all, the report provides no data to justify such a dramatic increase in the workforce. Except that the increase in the number of prosecutors over the past 15 years has been meteoric.
Why “one to one” instead of 1.7 to 1? Or 1.5? We don’t know.
Also, not all jobs are created equal. A judge who conducts shows for a week does not have much preparation and above all no writing. A person hearing a complex case, by contrast, needs two weeks of deliberation for a three-day hearing.
The message the Chief Justice’s decision sends is that the judiciary simply wants to do less — for the same incredible salary, recently raised to $310,000 a year, plus a pension. No one is forced to become a judge.
The Minister of Justice responded by instructing the Court of Appeal to block the application of this new framework. This week, he applied to the Superior Court to temporarily halt the new system pending an appeals court decision — a request that was promptly denied on Thursday.
The chances of success of this referral are almost zero. The Court of Appeal is involved in managing Quebec court schedules and it is difficult to say what is a reasonable threshold for days spent sitting.
But the question arises. Ontario has a much higher proportion of provincial judges – but with different duties. What is “legal”?
The minister cited in his plea the former president of the Quebec Court of Justice’s Conference of Judges (a kind of judges’ union), Serge Champeaux, who resigned with a bang last spring. This judge, at odds with his colleagues, complained that the system was being harmed by judges taking fewer cases. (Ironically, the same judge Champeaux wrote the previous fall that judges of the Criminal and Penal Division should have benefited from a “one-to-one” ratio “a long time ago”.) Let’s see how the minister will use the situation politically.. .
Even if Minister Jolin-Barrett loses his case, he wins politically, unfortunately by making the court look bad, which certainly doesn’t deserve to be called lazy.
The Chief Justice pushed the arguments too far and too quickly.
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