Gov stacking court?

Government deliberately stacking Highest court with their jesters, puppets and clowns.

Only 2 of 9 Judges to our highest "court" considered Anglophones, and only ONE is from the WEST.

Morris Fish - Anglophone, born and raised in QUEBEC
Marie Deschamps - Francophone, born and raised in QUEBEC
Louis LeBel - Francophone, born and raised in QUEBEC
Rosalie Abella - Anglophone, born and raised in Ontario
William Binnie - Anglophone, born and raised in QUEBEC
Michel Bastarch - Francophone, born in New Brunswick, went to university in QUEBEC.
John Major, Anglophone, born in Ontario, went to university in QUEBEC, married a Francophone Quebecer.
Louise Charron, Francophone, born and raised in Ontario
Beverly McLachlin, Anglophone, born and raised in Alberta

Close on the heels of Prime Minister Martin's "promise" to fix the "democratic deficit", and "western alienation" ...

Justice Louise Charron and Justice Rosalie Abella, both of the Ontario Court of Appeal, have been nominated to fill two vacancies in the Supreme Court of Canada.

In announcing the nominations, "Justice" Minister Irwin Cotler said that "merit" and not their positions on individual issues, such as same-sex marriage, were what earned them the nominations.

"These are two outstanding jurists," Cotler said. "I think to reduce this issue to one perspective subject matter would be really prejudicial to the integrity of the judges and the independence of the judiciary."

[Did he ACTUALLY say "independence of the judiciary"???? Was this a joke aimed at the gullible Canadian sheeple? Are *you* laughing? Is your IQ over 65?]

Abella, 58, graduated from the University of Toronto law school in 1970. She practised civil and criminal litigation, and was appointed to the Ontario Family Court in 1976, at the age of 29.

Charron earned her law degree at the University of Ottawa in 1975 and was called to the bar in 1977. She practised civil litigation and was also assistant Crown attorney for the Judicial District of Ottawa-Carleton from 1980 to 1985.

She was appointed to the District Court of Ontario in 1988, and named to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1995.

Cotler said more details about their qualifications and why they were chosen will come out on Wednesday, when a new vetting process for the two candidates gets underway.

But Conservative MPs Vic Toews and Peter MacKay say it's a flawed process. They've long been in favour of parliamentary hearings similar to those held in the United States.

In the U.S., prospective Supreme Court judges are grilled by a congressional committee.

"We feel it falls far short of having a meaningful consultation with parliamentarians," MacKay said.

Toews criticized the ad hoc committee Cotler has put together, consisting of seven MPs and two experts from the legal community.

He said it could have included representatives of victims' group or chiefs of police.

Wednesday will be the first time public hearings on the nominees' qualifications for the top court job will be held.

The hearings will be televised. Cotler is expected to appear before the hearing, not the nominees themselves.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has promised to make the appointment process more open. MacKay and Toews said it's another example of Martin breaking his promises.

But Martin has said the process would be revised after the current nominations. The government claims it was caught off guard by its two vacancies in the Supreme Court.

In June, Louise Arbour accepted the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Frank Iacobucci retired.

But MacKay had doubts over Martin's commitment to revising the process. "Time will tell, but the past record hasn't been too rosy," he said.

On Wednesday, Cotler will field questions about the candidates, but the findings of the panel will be strictly advisory and there will be no formal process for objecting to the nominations.

"This procedure is a farce. Our role is to rubber stamp the nominees," MacKay said. "Where does democracy come in this process?"

Supreme Court of Canada is a Political Toy

For immediate release
Ottawa, August 24, 2004

The appointment today of two hard-line feminist judges, Judges Abella
and Charron, both known to be in support of the gay agenda, confirms
that the Supreme Court of Canada is a political toy used by the Liberal
government to further its own agenda. It seals the fate of the same-sex
marriage reference case to be heard by the Court in October.

Madam Justice Rosalie Abella explained the power and biases of the
judges best when she wrote in a 1987 feminist book, "Equality and
Judicial Neutrality," (before her judicial appointments).

Every decision-maker who walks into a courtroom to hear a case is armed
not only with the relevant legal text but with a set of values,
experiences and assumptions that are thoroughly imbedded.

The imbedded biases of Judges Charron and Abella are well known. Madam
Justice Louise Charron was one of the presiding judges in the M and H
case which held that the same benefits must be awarded to same-sex
partners as to common-law heterosexual couples.

She was also Associate Director of the National Judicial Institute which
conducts a highly biased gender sensitivity program that promotes
feminist legal theories, statistics and analyses.

Judge Abella, who has spent only a very few months in the actual
practice of law, has climbed up the political / legal ropes based on her
reputation as a "human rights" activist. In fact, many of her decisions
were based not on any established law, but rather on her own feminist
ideology.

In the Rosenberg (1998) case, Judge Abella ignored a decision of the
Supreme Court of Canada in the Nesbit and Egan case (1995), which she
was bound to follow as a legal precedent, and instead dismissed that
case as "wrongly decided," and declared that same-sex partners were
"spouses" under the Income Tax Act.

Appointment Process of Judicial Appointments

The so-called "new" appointment system of judges by the Liberals is
merely the "old" system in a not very careful disguise. The Prime
Minister still makes the appointment from a short list provided him by
the Minister of Justice, and the latter only
appears before a Parliamentary Committee to "review the qualifications
and track records of the appointed judges." This is a charade. The
committee cannot vote on the appointments, there is no mechanism to
object to nominations, and any decisions of the Committee is not binding
on the Prime Minister. This process is nothing more than a Liberal ploy
of smoke and mirrors to pretend there have been some changes to the
process and democratic input into it, when obviously there has been
none.

According to REAL Women's National Vice President, lawyer, Gwen Landolt:

"The appointment of Judges Charron and Abella confirms that the
characteristics of impartiality and respect for parliamentary democracy
and fairness are no longer qualifications for appointments to the court
and confirms that judicial appointments are political toys to be used at
the government's discretion.

The credibility and integrity of the courts have been undermined by the
appointments of Madam Justices Charron and Abella, and respect for this
court is a part of the past."

For further information contact:
C. Gwendolyn Landolt
(905) 787-0348

http://www.realwomenca.com/alerts2.htm

TORONTO STAR

Aug. 25, 2004.

"Tories blast 'sham' review of judges"

Nominees should appear in person, Tory justice critic argues

CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - To hear Justice Minister Irwin Cotler tell it, his two choices to
sit on Canada's top court can pretty much walk on water. And no one
disagreed with him. The first-ever committee to review Supreme Court
candidates aired no qualms today about Ontario Court of Appeal Justices
Rosalie Abella and Louise Charron. In fact, the all-party advisory panel of
seven MPs and two legal experts asked few questions about the judges
themselves. Instead, opposition members on the interim panel spent much of a
three-hour session venting frustration about the process.

The interim committee has no veto power, did not see a short list of
candidates before selections were made, and will issue a non-binding report
on Friday. The appointments must then be made official by the prime minister
any time after that. Conservative members had to settle for grilling Cotler
after the Liberals nixed their request to quiz candidates in person.
Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay called the process "a sham" that
breaks Prime Minister Paul Martin's promise to open the high-court selection
system.

`It's a joke," MacKay said after the hearing. "It's window dressing. It's
lip service. It's just running it by us for some form of credibility that
doesn't exist." Cotler said he wasn't about to risk judicial integrity by
exposing high-court candidates to such queries as "When did you stop beating
your wife?" MacKay called the comment "insulting" and said MPs never
intended to turn the screenings into a political free-for-all. Still, much
of Wednesday's hearing was a mix of grandstanding and partisan clashes.

MacKay and Conservative justice critic Vic Toews lambasted Cotler for giving
the panel 24 hours' notice, a three-hour televised hearing and just two days
to report on the candidates. Abella and Charron weren't announced as
nominees until Tuesday. Cotler, on the other hand, spent eight months
researching potential nominees, consulting with judges and lawyers, and
reviewing rulings. Toews called it a "rubber stamp" process that strips
Canadians of their right to know their most powerful jurists. He called it
"astounding" that the candidates were not even asked if they would appear
before the committee. Cotler fired back that all parties agreed that only
the justice minister would take questions on a contender's intellect,
demeanour, racial awareness and other attributes.

New Democrat MP Joe Comartin reminded Cotler that the Liberals weren't
willing to negotiate on that point. MacKay called the hearing a pointless
review of a done deal. Conservatives had little choice but to accept a lousy
process and fight for future changes, he said. Cotler himself all but
confirmed its irrelevance. It would take a lot to change his mind about
Abella and Charron, he told the panel. "Only if you can provide any clear,
authoritative evidence that would disqualify a person from serving."

Both nominees are "outstanding," Cotler repeatedly said. The government
tried to broaden public scrutiny of top-court appointments while protecting
judicial independence, he said. Even before the hearing began, Toews noted
that Abella and Charron are both known for judgments supporting same-sex
rights. The nine-member Supreme Court will hold a milestone hearing in
October on Liberal efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. Toews suggested a
political connection. "It is clear for everyone to see that this is part of
the prime minister's agenda" to allow gay weddings, he said.

Cotler insisted that merit was his prime consideration when whittling down
top candidates. He also dismissed suggestions from some quarters that
Abella, a renowned defender of human rights, is soft on crime. "This has no
basis in fact," Cotler said, citing a review of her judgments. He also
torpedoed the idea that Abella may be the court's next great dissenter. Of
313 judgments since 1994, Abella dissented in 31 - or 10 per cent of cases,
he said. Cotler also rejected a Quebec request for the federal government to
choose from a list provided by the province to fill future vacancies from
Quebec.

In a letter sent Aug. 6 to Cotler, Quebec Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis
and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoit Pelletier asked for "formal
participation" by Quebec in the process.

"We insist that we are part of the decisions," they wrote. But Cotler said
selecting from a list provided by the province would infringe on the federal
government's constitutional right to name justices.