On a suggestion by reader Mister Kim, I’m bringing this blog entry from a few weeks ago back to the top.
**UPDATED Dec 15 2005 with new reports – see below**
Original blog entry: 11/19/05 11:26 am:
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It’s in the article, below, but it bears repeating here to highlight it for the liberals of Canada who apparently aren’t embarrassed by this sort of banana-republic-like corruption; and keep voting liberal-left, no matter what the liberal-left does:
…[former judge] Glube said …she was aware lawyers without Liberal ties often won’t even apply for the bench.
The mere fact that this story is not presented with huge prominence on the front page of every newspaper in Canada, tells us everything we need to know about the hideous bias in favor of liberals and liberalism, and the abject perfidy we find in Canada’s unbalanced, biased liberal media today. In the case of the Vancouver Sun, the small story in question is on page seven. Shown at right is the cover story at GlobeandMail.com today.
And of course the story itself displays mind-numbingly obvious and enormous political corruption of one of the most basic foundations of our Canadians society —its judiciary— by the Liberals.
Canadians are being led down a very, very dangerous path by liberals, and yet they continue to call this “progress”, and “progressive”.
Judge selection too political, ex-justice says
Constance Glube was Nova Scotia’s top judge until her retirement last year after 22 years heading both the appeal and trial courts of her province. She told a Commons subcommittee this week successive federal regimes almost invariably ignored her advice when aides to the federal justice minister called over the years to ask which lawyers on short lists were best suited for appointment to the federal bench.
[…] “I almost never got the names that I suggested were the top people for the place,” Glube candidly testified, the first senior Canadian jurist to publicly state what other chief justices have complained about in private for years. “I was never prepared to say it when I was a judge, but I can say it now because I’m not a judge any more. I felt that we were not always getting the top people. The people I thought were the best qualified were not getting the appointments.”
Instead less-qualified friends of the government too often get the nod, said Glube.
“What we have had is people that we know have close association with politicians who are getting the appointments. They’re not former politicians. And they’re not necessarily the top candidates. But you know sometimes who’s going to get appointed when you hear the list.”
Without naming names, Glube alluded to a tempest in Nova Scotia legal circles in 1998 when former justice minister Anne McLellan appointed Liberal fundraiser and party organizer Heather Robertson to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
The provincial judicial appointments advisory committee, which vets lawyers’ qualifications for the justice minister, had initially determined it was “unable to recommend” Robertson for the bench, but reversed itself when asked to reconsider.
The move sparked the resignation of the committee’s judicial member, along with a stiff letter of protest from the Canadian Bar Association admonishing McLellan that attempts “to manipulate the committee to achieve a desired political outcome must not be permitted.”
Glube called it a “very serious incident.”
She added it is discouraging for the members of the non-partisan vetting committees for federal judges in each province, who do their work for free and with little recognition, to see politics taint appointments. “It’s wrong. It’s very hard on them. They’ve put a lot of effort to come up with the lists they think are the best.”
Glube recalled the example of two superb Nova Scotia lawyers with no political ties. “They never got appointed, and they were the top lawyers in our community,” Glube said, adding she was aware lawyers without Liberal ties often won’t even apply for the bench.
The current chair of the ad hoc federal advisory committee that will help pick the replacement for retiring Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Major conceded “we’ve had some people from other parties be appointed. But it’s rare. It’s very, very rare.”
It was my wife who brought this article to my attention. She told me about it in encapsulated form, and then I asked her where in the article they had the part about the Conservative Party having, as a part of their official platform, that Supreme Court Judges will be nominated, and appointed only after they are ratified by a free vote in Parliament, after receiving the approval of the Justice Committee of the House of Commons.
Well it wasn’t in there, she said.
Gee. Go figure. Whenever a conservative says anything in this country, it’s vetted (negatively) by six liberal politicians from Toronto who are given 18 column-inches to elucidate their liberal-left platform, it’s counter-argued by four socialists, it’s judged as woefully inadequate and silly by 3 leftist university professors, and finally of course deemed homophobic by five federally-subsidized gay-rights advocates.
**December 15 2005 update**
(Hat tip to Kim for this update)
Liberal media continues to largely bury this scandal and to the extent that it is covered, it’s hardly framed as the dangerous—for the whole nation—Liberal Party scandal that it is.
Say you’re sorry, judge demands
Robertson slams Glube for comments on patronage in judicial appointmentsJustice Heather Robertson of Nova Scotia Supreme Court is demanding a public apology from former chief justice Constance Glube, who made comments last month about politics and appointments to the bench.
Justice Robertson wrote a scathing letter to Ms. Glube, former head of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, accusing her of making “a reprehensible attack on a sitting judge.”
“I am proud of my court and all of the appointments to it,” Justice Robertson wrote in a Nov. 23 letter obtained by The Chronicle Herald. “We offer a rich and diverse array of judges, many of whom would not obviously, as demonstrated by your public comments, have been your choice. We are a court of diverse race, creed, physical ability and yes, former political affiliation.
[…] After this newspaper contacted her office, Justice Robertson issued a statement saying she will not comment publicly on the letter.
[…] Ms. Glube told a Commons committee last month that the federal government too often bases judicial appointments on politics instead of merit. She said she frequently suggested the province’s top lawyers for appointments but Ottawa never accepted her recommendations.
“You took exception to my “political lineage’ and preferred candidates on the list of applicants you were provided,” wrote Justice Robertson, one-time chief of staff to former premier John Savage.
“A candidate for judicial office should not be excluded from consideration to serve on the bench because they had participated in the political process, once called public service.”
An independent committee of lawyers and lay people suggests people for judicial appointments, putting forward names to the government that are “highly recommended,” “recommended” or “not recommended.”
[…] In 1998, the government picked Ms. Robertson, former law school classmate of then-justice minister Anne McLellan and then-Halifax MP Mary Clancy.
Ms. Robertson was on the “not recommended” list. The government asked the committee to reconsider and the only judge on the panel quit in protest. The committee changed its decision and Ms. Robertson was appointed.
In her letter, Justice Robertson said she believes her application was passed over the first time because there was concern it might be too soon after a 1995 skiing accident that left her in a wheelchair. She said that was despite “impeccable references and a favourable reply from members of the bar as to my suitability to serve.”
While she did not mention Justice Robertson by name, Ms. Glube spoke to a Commons committee about the case last month. She also told this newspaper last month that the judicial selection process needs to be changed to prevent political interference.
“It was wrong to happen,” Ms. Glube said. “You don’t put people back through a committee when somebody has said a person’s not qualified.”
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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