Justice committee  Yes. The consultation was done in several stages. The department prepared a consultation document that was posted to the departmental website, and the general public had a chance to comment on it. We officials also examined all the correspondence that the Minister of Justice h

Justice committee  I'm sorry. The complaint is made public at what stage?

Justice committee  The complaint becomes public as soon as you get to a hearing panel. Once you get to hearings, section 2(b) of the charter requires openness. At that point, it becomes public by default. Whether it's public from the beginning depends on the nature of the complaint, the complainan

Justice committee  No, it's not automatic. Confidentiality is not automatic. It really depends on the complaint.

Justice committee  Currently, there isn't. The council does issue an annual report where it provides that kind of information, but there is no current requirement. Bill C-9 is going to change that. I believe it's proposed section 160 at the end of clause 12. It imposes a requirement for an annual

Justice committee  No, there has been reporting every year. The council does it. It's just not required. Now it will be required. I believe that proposed section 160 stipulates some things that have to be in the report. Those things are largely in the reports already. It reflects established pract

Justice committee  My understanding is that there are around 600 or so complaints a year. It depends on the year. It varies quite a bit there. Some years it's closer to 700; some years it's a little bit lower. I would say that over time it's probably trending a little bit upwards, and that's becaus

Justice committee  It does, yes. I think we have around 1,200 federally appointed judges.

Justice committee  Definitely they are.

Justice committee  The obligation flows from procedural fairness. The Federal Court has found that there is a procedural fairness obligation to notify the complainant adequately of the outcome of the process. That's a legal obligation that the CJC has, that the Federal Court has found that the CJC

Justice committee  In a meaningful way.

Justice committee  It's to notify them in a meaningful way of the outcome of the process. It's not a matter of.... Exactly how extensive the reasons have to be will depend on the complaint, but they do have to be notified in a clear way how their complaint was dealt with.

Justice committee  The CJC will be in a better position to speak to whether that's only at the end or whether there are intermediate stages. Currently, I can say that for complaints that are entirely public, because some complaints are entirely public from the beginning, the CJC issues press releas

Justice committee  Again, that is a question that the council would be better placed to answer. I can say that what we see are the judicial review applications. A complainant can always judicially review a council decision that they're not happy with in Federal Court. That is not going to change fo

Justice committee  That's true. It's not possible. On that subject, see the Federal Court of Appeal's decision in Bourbonnais v. Canada in your documents. The reference is “Bourbonnais v. Canada (A.G.), 2006 FCA 62”. Writing for the court, Judge Nadon held that judicial independence provided the ju