Thank you very much.
I think this ties directly into the burden of my written submission, namely, that Parliament should be deciding these questions, not the government of the day. As I strongly emphasized, judges are appointed—until they reach the age of retirement—not to serve the purposes of a single administration, but to serve the country and the people of this country.
In most other areas of the law, Parliament has to be consulted; Parliament has to approve. If Parliament in its wisdom were to decide it wanted the advice of committee members, including police officers and people who are very tough on crime, so be it. I might not agree with that judgment, but at least I would know it's in the legislation and at least a majority of the members of Parliament had approved this direction.
But I strongly resist the notion, under which we've laboured for the last 140 years, that the appointment of judges is the prerogative of the particular administration. I've tried to argue repeatedly—and I'm not the only one—that it has been abused. It's a power that has been abused for 140 years, and that should be the focus of this committee. I think we're becoming too fixated on the issues of the treatment of crime, despite what the Chief Justice said.
Others have said that in fact superior court judges try only a very tiny percentage of the cases. I think we're doing a grave injustice in the whole concept of judicial appointments when we focus on a very tiny percentage of cases that are decided by a tiny minority. Remember also that we have appeal courts, and if the Crown feels that a trial judge has been too lenient, the Crown should appeal—and often does.
I seem to recall some years ago Chief Justice Lamer sat on a series of appeals from Manitoba in which the court said the Manitoba courts were inconsistent in their sentencing policy and many of their sentences were too lenient. I think it's completely misleading to suggest that appeal courts are indifferent to public opinion or the appropriate sentence.
It's not an easy question, and I disagree with you, Judge Lamer, when you say we have to be tough on crime. I don't know what that means. If that means a long jail sentence effects the purpose, I think you'll find a lot of criminologists disagree.
But leaving that issue aside, the point I want to make is that there are ways and means for the public to make known their views. There are appeal courts. Public opinion does influence judges, you may be sure. But the point I come back to—and it's absolutely fundamental to my position—is that we shouldn't get fixated. Our first priority should be to have legislation to get rid of this 140-year obsession with letting the government of the day decide who's going to be appointed a judge and how that appointment is going to be made. Unless we can overcome that, which I perceive to be an enormous hurdle, we will continue to debate this issue time and time again.
As I said in my written submission, I have appeared three times before this committee over the last three years. It's not that I have any misconceptions about my own role, but I don't see that the committee has much of an impact, precisely because they're not willing to move to the legislative stage.
My keen concern is that regardless of what the committee says, the government will ignore it if it disagrees. Obviously if the committee underscores the government's partiality it will feel vindicated, but if the committee disagrees, the government will simply ignore it and proceed on its way.
As I've argued, we need legislation to both reaffirm Parliament's role in this situation and, once and for all, bring to an end this highly subjective, non-merit-based system of appointments that now exists.