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Justice committee Well, as I say, I think the reason for resignation is the inability to continue to discharge the role of Attorney General specifically. Again, to reiterate, this is not something that should happen easily but needs to probably occur if there is some significant series of events
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I think what I would say about that is that the critically important role that the Attorney General has to administer justice and pay attention to the rule of law is the consideration that needs to be uppermost in the Attorney General's mind. Again, without specific facts befor
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I'm not sure I can speak to this general concept of all cabinet ministers being placed under pressure, but I guess the reason we're all interested in this question about the Attorney General is that the Attorney General has an extremely specific and critical role within the gover
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I'll address the last aspect of your question first. I think this comes back to the question of parliamentary accountability, in the sense that one remedy for the Attorney General who finds himself or herself in that position is to seek to describe that circumstance in Parliament
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I do want to emphasize that the decision to resign is an extremely serious decision and should really only be taken, I think, by an Attorney General as a last resort. I don't think it's something that anybody would suggest be done lightly. I think it would only be done in a conte
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee Again, I think that certainly it is appropriate for individuals who are in a position to know what considerations or what the effect of various prosecutorial actions might be to bring those to the attention of the DPP. All I'm saying is that there is now a different framework i
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee Yes. I know it's an academic's prerogative to change his or her mind, but I still agree that there are a number of different considerations that could be legitimate to take into consideration. That's what makes it so difficult for someone in this role, such as an Attorney General
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I think my colleague was certainly putting a great deal of emphasis on the issue of the Attorney General at the federal level in Canada being a member of cabinet, whereas in the U.K. this is not the case. That certainly is a puzzle because, as I think both Professor Edwards and
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I do agree with the formulation. I think it's very consistent with Edwards' formulation of this in his book, The Attorney-General, Politics and the Public Interest. Advice is one thing; pressure is something else. I think he is clear in saying that the responsibilities of the Att
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I think that I agree with them, to the extent that many of those formulations distinguish between the provision of advice, information and considerations of the public interest on the one hand and a sense of pressure on the other. There is something that I think is interesting,
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee My colleague wants to jump in.
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I think that's a very interesting question, but I also think it's a novel question. Certainly, with respect to the offence of obstruction of justice in the Criminal Code, my understanding is that it is a little bit more restricted than the ability to apply it generally to discu
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee Again, there does need to be a process of fact-finding in order to determine all of the aspects of what occurred. In the British Aerospace case, in the context of the judicial review of the discontinuance of the prosecution, the witness statement that was provided by the Attorney
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee It's hard to answer that question definitively, I think. I guess my best answer would be that, in general terms, once a decision has been made to lay charges, all the rules of criminal procedure then come into play in terms of the requirement to disclose relevant evidence to the
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon
Justice committee I would be happy to start off with my reaction, which is really to go back to the sense I expressed in my remarks. If the responsibility on the Attorney General is to exercise this really very significant power in the public interest, there needs to be some ability to determine w
February 25th, 2019Committee meeting
Mary Condon