Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Thank you for inviting the Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association to give its views on Bill C-58. My name is Pierre Bienvenu. I'm a lawyer in private practice at Norton Rose Fulbright, and I have long represented the association in r

Information & Ethics committee  The decision that the bill proposes to have made by the commissioner or the registrar and that I have suggested should be made by the chief justice of the court concerned is the decision as to whether the contemplation and publication of a given judicial expense could undermine j

Information & Ethics committee  The short answer is no. I don't think there is a risk that this would be the case, but I need to insist that you are focusing on an exception. The thrust of my submission is that the regime itself is inadequate and unnecessary. There are two aspects to this bill. One is accounta

Information & Ethics committee  That is a very important question. Why are judges in a position that is not comparable to that of elected officials or members of the bureaucracy? They are in a different position, I would submit, for at least three reasons. The first, as I've just mentioned, is that their expe

Information & Ethics committee  I just need to finish my answer. —whose very existence is to stand as a buffer between the government and the judiciary. The third reason, a very important reason, that judges are not in a situation comparable to elected officials is that judges may not publicly defend themselv

Information & Ethics committee  I do not have that information, but I know there are expense claims that are rejected by the commissioner.

Information & Ethics committee  Sir, with respect, I disagree with your premise. It is not the case that the Canadian public is in the dark as to judicial expenses. I mentioned in my opening remarks that all reimbursable expenses must fall within one of the five allowances that are set out in the Judges Act. It

Information & Ethics committee  The fact, and that's an important point for members of the committee, that judicial independence is engaged by the publication regime set out in that bill is acknowledged by the bill itself. The bill itself contains an exception if the publication can undermine judicial independe

Information & Ethics committee  Let me answer your question. You're asking me to give you examples of how judicial independence is engaged by the requirement to publish expenses. The example I'll give you is travelling expenses.

Information & Ethics committee  The example I was going to give you is travelling expenses. Judicial independence has three core characteristics: security of tenure, financial security, and administrative independence. Administrative independence has been held to extend to assignment decisions by chief justices

Information & Ethics committee  In response to your first question, the work of judges involves issues of criminal conviction and sentencing fraught with emotion, such as custody of children, disputes over wills and estates, and bankruptcy matters, to give a few examples. As I stated in my opening remarks, judg

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. In my opening remarks, I acknowledged that one way of pursuing the transparency objective of the act is to have unattributed expense information made public by the commissioner.

Information & Ethics committee  Here, he wouldn't have to ask for the information, because it's a proactive publication system—

Information & Ethics committee  —so the publication would be—

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it could be.... I leave it to your imagination.