Source: https://reviewfromthebench.ca/category/judges/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 11:12:50+00:00

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The Supreme Court of Canada (hereafter SCC) decision in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), released February 6th, is of vital importance. This decision has grabbed the headlines and stirred public discussion. About the pros and cons of assisted death. About the role of the SCC. About the relationship of the Court to legislators. These are big issues, now squarely on the agenda in the year ahead.
My focus is not assisted death in substance; reasonable people differ on that subject. My interest is in what the decision tells us about judicial restraint. Andrew Coyne, in the National Post (February 14th), under a headline proclaiming “The Death of Judicial Restraint,” cited Carter as an example of judges changing the law “only because they wanted to.” He lamented “the fading notion that the courts, in interpreting the law, should be bound by…something—the written text, the historical record, precedent, logical consistency. …[and]…with the legalization of ‘assisted death, (the court) has slipped free [from these constraints] altogether.” I emphatically disagree.
In my view, the decision of the SCC in Carter is a model appellate decision demonstrating that the legal process in Canada is alive and well, and that the SCC is doing its job superbly. In a totally focused judgment, the SCC only decided what they had to decide, to review the decisions of the trial judge and the BC Court of Appeal, in this particular case.
Repeatedly, they declined to decide what was not necessary for their immediate purpose. Their focus was on the evidence put in at trial and on the findings of fact of the trial judge. This included evidence of the effect of the existing law on the plaintiffs before the Court, and evidence of the plethora of contemporary experience on the issue, since the issue was last considered by the Supreme Court of Canada, itself, in 1993. All relevant to the precise Charter issue before the court. Their reasons are replete with references to the jurisprudence which shaped their decision.
In my view, faced with the unenviable job of dealing with a matter known to be highly contentious, they had the courage to make the decision required by law and, out of deference to Parliament, the wisdom to make it as narrow as possible.
In this post today and others to follow, I will discuss what the SCC actually said in Carter, and what it teaches us about the nature of Canada’s legal system. I am interested by the fact that their decision, although argued as recently as October 15th, 2014, was produced so soon. Also that it was a unanimous 9:0 decision, written not by one judge but by the Court as a whole, including eight out of nine judges appointed by Conservative governments. I think that the Court was able to render their judgment so quickly precisely because it is a very narrow decision characterized by extreme judicial restraint. The sad truth is that a commentator as smart and well-informed as Andrew Coyne cannot see “judicial restraint” when it is staring him in the face.
In this post, I will unpack the decision for those of you who are not legally trained (and for lawyers who may be intrigued by my argument). What were the issues before the court? Where did the case originate? What did the SCC actually decide? What supports my view that the SCC was extremely restrained in their approach to the case?
Blog posts are generally short, such that each of these topics could be a post unto itself. Because the topics are inter-related and essential information, however, I thought it best to keep the discussion together. The result? A post which is essentially a mini-essay. The easiest way to read it may be to print a hard copy.
Carter began as a “test case” before Justice Lynn Smith of the British Columbia Supreme Court in the fall of 2011. The plaintiffs included Gloria Taylor, who had ALS, and Lee Carter, whose mother Kay Carter had suffered from advanced spinal stenosis and had travelled to Switzerland in 2010 to secure an assisted death legally.
They argued that these provisions denied them the assistance of a physician should they want to end their own life and, by doing so, violated their rights under s. 7 and s. 15 (1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Don’t worry if you do not understand the significance of the lingo used in the Charter. The Charter was enacted in 1982 and, over the succeeding 32 years, thousands of judges from the SCC to the Provincial Courts have grappled with the meaning of the Charter in individual cases before them. This body of law (known as “jurisprudence”) is sophisticated and constantly changing. In Carter, you will learn about the meaning of s. 1 and s. 7 of the Charter. You will also learn how courts approach a Charter analysis. Informed lay people do not need to know all the details. It is sufficient to understand what the heck is going on. I hope this post will help.
Getting back to the history of the case, the plaintiffs wanted a Declaration suspending the existing law until Parliament could pass a new one. In the interim, they sought a constitutional exemption from prosecution for Gloria Taylor and anyone who assisted her in dying.
The defendants were the Attorneys General of Canada and of British Columbia. They argued that Justice Smith was bound by the 1993 decision of the SCC, in Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General),  3 S.C.R. 519, which had upheld the same sections of the Criminal Code in a similar case. They said that the trial judge had no option but to dismiss the application.
In June 2012, Justice Smith released her 1416-paragraph decision: Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) 2012 BCSC 886. After an “exhaustive review” of all the evidence and after considering the legal arguments of counsel, she held that she could “distinguish” Rodriguez. That means that, on the new law argued before her and the facts proven in the evidence at trial, there was room for her to reconsider Rodriguez. She concluded that the absolute ban in the Criminal Code violated the s. 7 and s. 15 Charter rights of Gloria Taylor and those who might assist her, and that the plaintiffs should be granted the relief they sought. She later ordered special costs against Canada and British Columbia.
The Attorney General of Canada appealed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal. The majority of that court (2:1), in 2013, held that Justice Smith was wrong, that she was bound by Rodriguez, and set aside her orders [Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 BCCA 435 at para 352]. On January 18, 2014, the SCC granted leave to the plaintiffs to appeal that decision. The SCC properly agreed to hear their appeal as it clearly raised issues of national importance.
The Court found that the plaintiffs had met their onus of showing that the absolute ban on assisted death violated the s. 7 Charter rights of Gloria Taylor and people like her to “life, liberty and security of the person….” All three s. 7 interests as defined by the caselaw were affected.
Turning to whether the breach was justified under Section 1 of the Charter, the only question was proportionality. (paras 94-101). The key issue? Whether the absolute ban “was the least drastic means of achieving the legislative objective?” The Court found no error in the trial judge’s conclusion that, on the evidence of current practices in Canada and in permissive jurisdictions elsewhere, “the risks associated with physician-assisted death can be limited through a carefully designed and monitored system of safeguards.” (paras 102-121). Since the evidence did not show that the absolute ban was minimally impairing, the SCC agreed with the trial judge that the government had not met its onus of proving that s. 1 justified the breach.
The SCC is very clear that their decision only applies to the factual circumstances of the plaintiffs before the court. (para 127). The SCC refused to comment about other situations when other classes of people may seek assisted death. This was the narrowest basis upon which they could deal with the case before them.
They declined to alter the existing law that both the feds and the provinces have concurrent jurisdiction over the issue for different purposes. (paras 49-53).
They upheld the existing legal definition of the s. 7 “right to life,” that it implies a threat of death, and refused to adopt a broader, qualitative approach to the “right to life.” (paras. 59-63).
In defining the object of the existing Criminal Code ban, they rejected federal government submissions’s to broaden the definition beyond that adopted by the majority decision in Rodriguez, that the object was “to protect vulnerable persons from being induced to commit suicide at a time of weakness.” It noted that “all the parties except Canada accept that formulation of the object.” (paras 73-78).
The SCC noted that the federal government at trial had conceded that the present law caught people outside the class of people intended to be protected by the objective of the law. (para 86). This basic finding of fact helped ground the decision that the law was overly broad.
The SCC clearly recognized when the SCC should defer to Parliament and the Legislatures, and that the standard expected from the state was not “perfection” but only what is “reasonable.” Where there is a “complex regulatory response,” a high degree of deference is owed to…Parliament.….” The contested sections of the Criminal Code were not such a response.
As it did in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford 2013 SCC 72 (the prostitution case), the SCC delayed the effective date of their decision for one year. Why? “… for Parliament and the provincial legislatures to respond, should they choose to do so, by enacting legislation consistent with the constitutional parameters set out in these reasons.” ( para 126).
The SCC followed their decision in Bedford (2013), that the trial judge did have legal authority to reconsider Rodriguez and that the SCC should defer to her findings of fact as “they were reasonable and open to her on the record.” (para 109). More on these issues in my next post.
Who is right? With this, and the post to follow (shorter I promise), you can decide. Better still, read the judgment itself, reported on the Court website at Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5. Do not be intimidated! The first few pages are the standard mechanics of any court decision: the parties, the date of the hearing, a short summary of the judgment called a headnote, the citations, and a list of counsel who appeared at the hearing of the appeal. The actual judgment of The Court starts with a Table of Contents and paragraphs numbered sequentially from paragraph 1-148. The Court writes very well, and you will be surprised at how accessible their judgment is to read. One of the duties of judges is to write reasons for their decisions, so that litigants and the public can understand why they came to the decision they did. You decide if The Court did its job.
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On December 16, 2014, the federal Department of Justice announced twenty-one new appointments to the upper courts of Ontario including two to the Court of Appeal, fifteen to the Superior Court, two transfers from the Superior Court to the Family Court Branch, and two transfers within the Superior Court resulting from the change of the Regional Senior in the North East Region. Eureka! The new appointments will be happy. The courts they will join will be even happier.
What is shocking about the announcement is how long the vacancies have existed. Brampton is one of the busiest jurisdictions in the province, with a heavy caseload (among other things) of drug prosecutions coming out of Lester Pearson Airport. Brampton is the court for Peel Region which was called “the worst jurisdiction north of the Rio Grande” in 1990 when, in a case arising out of Brampton (R. v. Askov), the Supreme Court of Canada defined what is “a trial within a reasonable time” in Canada. Thereafter, thousands of charges were withdrawn from the system because trials were unduly delayed. One would have thought the federal government would have been most anxious to avoid another Askov in Brampton.
Apparently not. Madam Justice Fairburn was appointed yesterday to replace Madam Justice van Rensburg, who was appointed to the Court of Appeal on October 1, 2013. Her position has been vacant for over 14 months. Justice Ivan Bloom was appointed yesterday to replace Justice Seppi who went supernumerary (retired to part-time) January 8, 2004, just over three weeks short of a year ago. Justice William LeMay was appointed yesterday to replace Madam Justice Snowie who went supernumerary May 25, 2014, just short of seven months ago.
How can it be that in Brampton of all places, the government has chosen to leave these positions vacant for such long periods of time? When the federal government decided to elevate a Brampton Superior Court judge to the Court of Appeal in October 2013, was there no one available to replace her at the time? Both Madam Justice Fairburn and Justice Bloom have been crowns in the system for a long time, Justice Bloom apparently an employee of the federal government’s own Public Prosecutions Service. Were neither of them available to fill the post over a year ago? How many cases have been delayed in the interval because “no judge was available” to conduct a trial? How many defendants, victims and other witnesses have endured prolonged stress and anxiety because their matters could not be scheduled for trial in a timely fashion?
Canada’s federal government has the power to define the criminal law and is happy to pass laws which add to the Criminal Code, ad infinitum. The feds also have the exclusive power to appoint judges to the Superior Courts and the Courts of Appeal. Appointing judges does not seem a priority. The vacancies left unfilled for so long speak for themselves.
On the assumption that the government is not asleep at the wheel, the rest of the list of new judges shows how delaying appointments has become the pattern of this federal government. The two Court of Appeal vacancies arose January 31, 2014, and March 5, 2014, eleven and ten months ago respectively. This is the most important court in Ontario; the highest court which defines the law for all the lower courts, and which, at full complement, has only twenty-two full-time judges.
Of the other newly appointed Superior Court judges, one replaces a judge who became Senior Family Judge on December 31, 2013, a year ago. Another replaces one who semi-retired January 8, 2014, nearly a year ago. Three replace judges who semi-retired in April, eight months ago; one replaces another who went supernumerary in May, seven months ago; another replaces a judge who went supernumerary in June, six months ago; and two replace judges who semi-retired in July, five months ago. The two transfers into the Family Court branch and the appointments to replace them are relatively recent (October and November), and one appointment is prospective, to replace a judge going supernumerary on January 16, 2015.
Judges who go supernumerary typically give ample notice of their intentions. Once semi-retired, they are scheduled into the calendar on a part-time basis, if their circumstances permit. Their part-time availability only partially fills the gaps. What is clear, however, is that the federal government exploits this supernumerary crutch to avoid the cost of providing full-time judicial services. Why have a full-time judge if a part-timer would suffice? “Law and order” and “the rights of victims” obviously do not extend to timely justice.
Justice Louis LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is 75 years of age and by law must step down from the Bench on Sunday. Yesterday, the federal government announced their choice of his successor: Suzanne Côté, partner and head of litigation at Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt in Montreal. With 34 years of experience in commercial and civil litigation and in public law, Côté has been hailed as one of the 25 best women lawyers in Canada. We don’t know her perspective on the role of judges, but her legal qualifications for the appointment are impeccable. That she becomes the fourth woman out of nine on the Bench is an added bonus.
That the government chose someone with no prior judicial experience is not cause for alarm. The legislation provides for appointing lawyers directly from the Bar and the practice is not unprecedented. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney appointed Toronto civil litigator John Sopinka to the SCC in May 1988. At that time, he had been in private practice for 28 years and had an outstanding reputation as a civil trial lawyer. Similarly, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed Ian Binnie to the Supreme Court in January 1998, after 32 years as a civil litigator and with significant legal service for the government. Such lawyers bring to the highest Court in the land much-needed expertise in the practical day-to-day realities of civil and commercial litigation. Both Justice Sopinka and Justice Binnie made outstanding contributions to the Supreme Court.
What is disturbing is the “process” for appointing Justice Côté. No one disputes that an SCC appointment is within the purview of the Prime Minister and his Minister of Justice. Under Prime Minister Chrétien, however, a process was created by which an Advisory Committee of Members of Parliament, legal experts and others developed a shortlist of candidates suitable for appointment to the SCC. With this advice at hand, the government made its choice. In 2006, Prime Minister Harper himself made it a condition of selection that the proposed appointee appear before a nationally televised all-party committee of Members of Parliament and legal experts to answer questions about their legal experience and perspective. Justice Marshall Rothstein was the first appointee to take part in this public hearing. Later Justices Thomas Cromwell, Michael Moldaver, Andromache Karakatsanis and Richard Wagner did the same. The process was intended to increase openness and transparency, and to inform the public about the judges themselves and why they were appropriate for appointment.
In June 2014, Prime Minister Harper and Justice Minister Peter MacKay shut down that process. When the SCC rejected Justice Marc Nadon as ineligible for a Quebec position on the Supreme Court, Harper and MacKay had a snit. Although under a duty to uphold the law and not malign the courts, they engaged in an unprecedented attack on the Chief Justice of the SCC which was widely regarded in the legal profession and across the country as totally unseemly. They also refused to recall the Advisory Committee to help find and vet the new appointment. On their own, without parliamentary input, and without any Committee hearings, they appointed Justice Clément Gascon of the Quebec Court of Appeal to the vacant Quebec place on the Bench. He was sworn in on October 6th, after the Quebec position had been vacant for a year. Harper and MacKay have done the same thing again. Made another Quebec appointment at the last possible moment, with no parliamentary participation, nor any public knowledge about the new appointee. Respect for process, transparency and accountability are apparently no longer important. Secrecy is again the name of the game.
In the meantime, the federal government has dragged its feet on the timely appointment of new judges to all federal courts across the country. At present, there are 61 vacant federal judicial positions across Canada waiting to be filled. This includes 23 judges in the Ontario Superior Court, five judges in the Ontario Unified Family Court, three in the Ontario Court of Appeal, and five in the Federal Court of Appeal. The Chief Justice of Ontario is the highest-ranking judge in Ontario. After Chief Justice Warren Winkler stepped down in December 2013, the position remained vacant until the federal government finally appointed Chief Justice George R. Strathy on June 13, 2014, over five months later. Who needs a Chief Justice anyway?
It should be obvious that judges are essential for access to justice within a reasonable time. Delay is endemic in the courts. So why not make timely appointments? Maybe the government can’t find enough judges of their own ideological persuasion to fill the posts. Or maybe the non-payment of judicial salaries contributes to the much-vaunted federal budget surplus. Or maybe, since the Provinces are responsible for administering justice, the public does not notice that the federal government is not carrying its weight in the system. Whatever the reason, it seems that this “law and order” government does not value public access to courts and to the judiciary. A government that valued justice and respected the courts would want a Bench working to capacity with as little burn-out as possible. That’s not happening, and it hasn’t for some time.
Supreme Court Nullifies Harper Appointment: Why is this important?
The Supreme Court decided 6:1 against the government; of whom three in the majority were appointees to the court by Prime Minister Harper. As is customary when litigants disagree about the correct interpretation of legal provisions, they considered the wording of the statute, its history and its purpose. Then the majority released their decision as one voice, to emphasize its importance. So what did the Supreme Court majority decide?
1) That Justice Nadon, the Harper government’s choice to fill one of three seats on the court reserved for Quebec judges, was not eligible for the position.
2) Having worked for the past 20 years in Ottawa, he was not a current member of the Quebec bar, nor of the high courts of Quebec, as required by s.6 of the Supreme Court of Canada Act.
3) That particular section, passed in 1875, and not changed since, “narrows the pool of eligible candidates” from the general requirements in s.5.
4) It does so for two basic reasons: a) to ensure civil law expertise and the representation of Quebec’s legal traditions and social values on the Court and b) to enhance the confidence of Quebec in the Court.
5) The federal government’s unilateral amendment to the Supreme Court of Canada Act declaring that former members of the Quebec bar or higher courts are eligible for appointment to the Supreme Court is beyond the powers of the federal government acting alone.
6) Changes to the Supreme Court and to its composition are subject to constitutional amending procedures requiring the unanimous consent of Parliament and the provincial legislatures.
I agree with Chantal Hébert and the other pundits who applaud this decision as a great day for Canadian federalism. Quebec can have no complaint when their own position on the issue was so completely affirmed by the Supremes. Separatists will be frustrated; but they are never happy when the Canadian federation shows that it serves Quebec interests well. There are those across Canada who may ask: “Why does Quebec get distinctive treatment on this issue?” They do, because their codified civil law is different from the common law applicable to the rest of Canada and, when the country was first formed, the Fathers of Confederation agreed to preserve that law in Quebec. That bargain recognized the distinctive nature of the French Canadian legal culture. This is a foundation principle upon which Canada was created and evolved to the official bilingual state we enjoy today.
True conservatives, and everyone else, across Canada, should be equally pleased. The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed its own status as one of the basic constitutional institutions of the nation, and insisted that its integrity must be respected. This is an essential precondition to protect the freedoms fundamental to our society. Those who complain that “the court has interfered with the supremacy of Parliament” do not seem to appreciate that it is a primary function of the court, and particularly the Supreme Court, to rule on the validity of state action. That’s what they do frequently. That’s what they were asked to do this time. That is their role. The Court is only doing their job. One of their jobs is to keep the government accountable. Accountable to the constitution which is the fundamental law of the land. You and I and everyone else who values the rule of law in this country should be thankful for that. No one is above the law, not even the Prime Minister and his majority in Parliament.
Everyone agrees that the process by which Justices are appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada needs updating. That is a subject for another day. Suffice it to say that, in the Nadon case, the federal government didn’t even follow the prevailing practice. Although Mr. Justice Fish gave six months notice of his retirement, the government waited until the very last minute to choose his successor. When they did, they ignored the pool of outstanding candidates obviously available and chose someone almost unknown, semi-retired, with limited legal jurisprudence to his credit, and whose only apparent claim was his obvious support for their own ideological perspective. With little time to know his record, his appearance before the Parliamentary Committee to review his appointment was perfunctory to say the least. The government knew, furthermore, that by choosing Justice Nadon, who was not a current member of the Quebec bar, or the Quebec higher courts, they were flirting with the s.6 statutory qualifications. When there was an immediate challenge to the appointment (from Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati, and then from the Quebec government itself), the government referred the matter directly to the Supreme Court for an expedited decision. The federal government also passed legislation to amend the Supreme Court Act asserting that their view of the provisions prevailed. Did Parliament think that, by passing such a law to apply retroactively, they could dictate how the Supreme Court must decide?
One can sympathize with the embarrassment this has caused Justice Nadon. The actions of the Harper government, however, were unprecedented. They called for a firm response. They got it… as Jeffrey Simpson said: a resounding “No.” Three cheers for the Supreme Court of Canada. Anyone who wants to read the Supreme Court decision for themselves can find it on the court webpage.

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