Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know whether it's an honour or not to be here this afternoon. It was three weeks ago today that I ceased to be the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench. Compulsory retirement is at 75, and so I obeyed the law and retired. Up until that tim

Justice committee  I was Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench.

Justice committee  We're a human system. We've created a human system in our judicial system in Canada. In a human system you're going to get strengths and you're going to get weaknesses. It would be easy to get rid of judicial discretion by having a grid system like the one they have in Californ

Justice committee  What I hear most about any kind of election of judges is that once you are in the election process, you're beholden to someone. We cannot be beholden to anybody; I don't care what the level of the court is. The provincial attorney general, when he makes the appointments, has to d

Justice committee  In all cases there are degrees of participation. They used to say that if you robbed a bank, the getaway car driver shouldn't get the same as the guy who held the gun. But he's an integral part of it, and therefore if you get life for robbing the bank, then probably the guy who d

Justice committee  I have no difficulty with minimum sentences in serious offences. In my view it is a serious offence if a person is found guilty for participating in organized crime. This undermines our whole social structure, undermines our society; it is an evil that has to be eradicated. You j

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  No, I wouldn't say nil. What the crown has done, I think because of lack of resources and because of the fact that these cases became so complicated.... They learned lessons from that mega-trial that sort of blew up. The result is that I think they would now pick and choose which

Justice committee  If a judge veers from the minimum, the judge has an obligation at that stage—and they presently have an obligation—to say why they are veering from the minimum, in the same way as when you have the crown and defence counsel agreeing on a sentence, with a joint submission, and the

Justice committee  Off the cuff, I would agree with that. The crown has the obligation of deciding how to proceed. The judges don't get involved in this, except that sometimes we might make a comment--i.e., “Why are you proceeding in this matter? Why don't you sever the charges?” You know, we can a

Justice committee  Well, I guess everything's possible, but boy oh boy, it would be very difficult. It would be very difficult, as I see it.

Justice committee  By the way, Mr.Chair, he never did appear in front of me; he was always too afraid.

Justice committee  I can't answer for the justices of the peace, and you have recognized that. It's a relatively new procedure that has occurred with the justice of the peace, within the last three or four years, as to how bail is handled at that level. Appeals that come to our court, which are b

Justice committee  If there have been written reasons, they then have to say on what basis they are making their decision and they then have to refer to the reports.

Justice committee  We're partly overcoming this, because we have criminal appearance court every Friday. Criminal appearance court is the time to make those applications. If you do not have particulars that you feel are satisfactory, then you apply for further and better particulars. Criminal app