Judges and lawyers are pissed off that your police force could have a presence on the secret judicial advisory committees that choose candidates for judgeships.
Yeah, let's not have any input from the dirty, plebeian footsoldiers in the never-ending war on crime. What do cops know anyway, compared to, well... judges & lawyers?
Beverley McLachlin, Canada's Chief Justice, along with a powerful council of the country's top judges issued an unprecedented rebuke yesterday to Justice Minister Vic Toews for hatching a plan to arbitrarily change the way judges are chosen.So what's the beef here... and more importantly, how is this arbitrary?
It's like the old saw about gender equality in other occupations... if my house is on fire, I don't give a crap about the male/female thing... I just want the biggest, strongest, most stubborn S.O.B. goin' up that ladder to pull my kid out the window.
Successive governments have appointed judges from those who are merely qualified, ignoring some of those ranked as highly qualified.Similarly, I want the most qualified candidate here, not some sleazy, politically connected hack, overseeing the system that metes out justice to criminals and more importantly, for victims. I think a representative from the enforcement side of the equation adds something valuable to the mix.
It is far too easy for marginal candidates to be ranked as qualified, Mr. Russell said. "Right now, they just screen out the utterly incompetent," he said. "If you are in Kingston Penitentiary or something like that, you don't make the list, but that's about it."
Most of those pushing for reform insist that the government should be obliged to choose only from the pool of candidates ranked as very qualified.
And that's what Justice Minister Vic Toews thinks too.
UPDATE: Steve Janke has more
A respected constitutional lawyer says her bid to become a federal judge was scotched because she "pissed off" prominent Liberal "godfathers" and the old boys' network that runs the legal profession.
Technorati Tags: judicial advisory committee, Supreme Court, Vic Toews
