Definition of Politics: Poli in latin meaning many, and tics meaning blood-sucking parasites.
– ANONYMOUS
Emmett Macfarlane, Poli Sci Prof, UWaterloo. Constitutional Law, Public Policy & Cdn Politics:
Law is politics, people. Never forget.
Refer first to:
Supreme Court of Canada in the cover-up business too? Top Court signs pact to keep records of deliberations secret for at least 50 years; Reserves right to keep some secret forever
Is this because Supreme Court of Canada wants Ernst and others concerned about the court’s charter-damaging and lying ruling in Ernst vs AER to be long dead before Justice Abella’s drafts and deliberations of her ruling, and where she got her fabricated facts from (AER’s outside counsel Glenn Solomon perhaps?) are “accessible” to the public?
And to hide that corporations and politicians control our judicial industry and instruct our judges how to rule and how to defame citizens trying to protect the public interest?
Federally appointed judges’ expenses to be made public for first time, Spending to be published after every quarter by Olivia Stefanovich, CBC News, Jul 26, 2020
The expenses of federally appointed judges will be made public this week for the first time — the result of recently implemented changes to the Access to Information Act.
The Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs is expected to publish the numbers on Tuesday, which will include travel, meal, conference and office equipment costs, among other expenses.
The Liberal government pushed the proactive disclosure rules as part of measures to improve transparency and accountability under Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, which became law in 2019.
The move is meant to 
But, it won’t. As long as judges can keep why they lie in published rulings and their deliberations secret (forever if the lying judges want), there will not be accountability, tranparency, fairness and equal “justice” for all, including for Indigenous, frac harmed, People of Colour, the poor, women, victims of rapists and pedophiles, and the environment, in Canada’s judicial industry enhance transparency and accountability in the judicial system — but it has faced resistance from federal judges.
The Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association, the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) and the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) have argued the bill jeopardizes judges’ personal safety Pffffft. Names of judges are not published with the expenses! Try living in explosive and cancer risk in your home from contaminated frac’d water in your community for nearly two decades with regulators nowhere to be seen but violating your rights and breaking the law to enable the corporate criminals, with judges protecting the crime enablers and corporate criminals. and judicial independence.Louder Pffffft! There is no such thing in Canada and never will be as long as our endless racist, misogynistic bigoted law-violating politicians appoint their specially chosen anti-justice, anti-environment, anti-public health, anti-Charter, racist, misogynistic, bigoted lying lawyers to the bench. The organizations insist there are already internal accountability controls to approve and review spending.
“A delicately balanced system designed to reconcile judicial independence with accountability for the expenditure of public funds is already in place. Bill C-58 will disrupt that system,” says a CBA brief.
The released information will not include the names of individual judges, but will include the number of judges who have had certain expenses reimbursed.
The legislation requires all federally appointed judges to proactively disclose their expenses every three months.
Travel expenses are expected to be lower than usual in Tuesday’s publication because of the pandemic. Expenses for technology could be higher, reflecting the fact that more judges have been working from home.
A weaker case for transparency?
Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, calls the upcoming publication of judicial expenses a positive step but said the case for making judges’ incidental expenses public is not as strong as it is for senators, MPs or provincial MLAs.
“The courts are clearly regarded as a separate kind of institution,” MacKay said.
“They are a non-political branch of government and, in that sense, the case for absolute transparency on these things isn’t as compelling.”Bullshit. Canada’s judicial and legal industries are mostly politics with a pinch of rule-of law-when-it-suits them tossed in to con Canadians into thinking we have a “justice” system. The judicial industry costs taxpayers a mammoth amount of money to service and protect the rich, and enable murdering racist cops, rapists, pedophiles, polluting public health harming corporate criminals, and law violating “regulators” while intentionally ceated to be inaccessible to nearly all ordinary Canadians.
Unlike politicians and other public officials, MacKay said, judges also aren’t able to publicly defend or explain themselves.
“That’s something else that maybe needs to be addressed,” he said.
“How can we deal with questions that may have legitimate answers if they had some opportunity through some vehicle to respond to that?”
Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said it’s an anomaly that the expenses of judges have not been made public up to this point.
Wudrick said the disclosure just brings judges in line with the rules for other people paid with public money.
“It’s reasonable for taxpayers to know how their money is being spent,” Wudrick said.
“That’s the reason we push for disclosure, for example, for members of Parliament and senators, and I think judges would fall under the same standard.”
‘Grossly unfair’: Judges push back on Liberal plan to make their expenses public, Legal representatives warn personal safety, judicial independence could be compromised by Kathleen Harris, CBC News, Dec 03, 2018
Federal judges are fighting a proposed law that would force them to make their travel and other expenses public, calling it “unacceptable.”
The Liberal government is pushing proactive disclosure rules as part of sweeping reforms to improve transparency and accountability. But legal representatives warn the new rules could undermine judicial independence, erode public confidence in the justice system We, the Canadian public, do not have confidence in the judicial industry, and have not for decades, if ever. There’s nothing to erode! and put the personal safety of judges in jeopardy.
At issue is Bill C-58, a bill to reform the Access to Information and Privacy Act that has cleared the House of Commons and is now being reviewed by the Senate legal affairs committee. As part of that legislation, all federally appointed judges — including those on the Supreme Court — would be required to proactively post their travel, incidental, conference and other expenses every three months.
Pierre Bienvenu is a lawyer for the Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association, one of three groups representing judges that oppose the bill. He said the legislation is raising “profound concerns for all judges.”
In a written submission to the committee, he said that some judges are required to travel more extensively across the country than others and that their expenses are incurred not by choice, but according to case assignment decisions.
“It is grossly unfair, indeed it is unacceptable, that the burden of standing out from the lot by reason of high travelling expenses be borne by an individual judge, as opposed to the court to which he or she belongs,” Bienvenu wrote in the briefing. But names of judges will not be published. There must be one hell of a lot of dirty goings on in our judicial industry, for judges wanting to continue keeping their expenses we pay for secret.
Personal safety concerns
There are also security issues at stake, Bienvenu said, since the work of judges involves emotionally fraught issues such as criminal convictions and sentencing, child custody and disputes over wills and estates. At least one party is usually dissatisfied with the outcome.
“The potential for mischief in the use of publicly available individualized expense information is enormous,” he said.
Sen. Serge Joyal, who chairs the Senate’s legal affairs committee, said he sees both constitutional and security issues arising from the bill. He pointed to the murder of retired tax court judge Alban Garon, his wife, Raymonde, and their neighbour in 2007 by a man with a bitter grudge against the tax system.
Publicly disclosed information could be used to track judges’ whereabouts, making them vulnerable to harassment or violence, Joyal said.
Unlike politicians and other officials, he added, judges also aren’t able to publicly defend or explain themselves when they face public scorn.
“A senator or a minister or an MP or an MLA whose expenses are published with his name and the various details of it can always go through the media or send an op-ed and explain the situation,” he said.
“But a judge cannot do that, nor the chief justice. They can’t enter the public debate.” More bullshit. Why do lawyers lie so much, and more importantly, why do they nearly always get away with it? Because like the oil and gas industry and judicial industry, lawyers regulate themselves?
Joyal said the committee hopes to hear an explanation from Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould of the government’s reasoning behind the bill, but no hearing date has been set.
“The judicial system in Canada is not perfect, but it’s one of the most reliable in the world, and it’s seen as that, as a model as an institution. Irk! More pathetic bullshit! That’s what my ex lead lawyer, Murray Klippenstein, kept ramming down my throat and pushed me to lie and tell the public (I refused)! Even past chief justice McLachlin publicly proclaimed repeatedly that our “judicial system” is inaccessible to most Canadians and becoming more so all the time. Besides, what’s “reliable” about the Supreme Court proving in their own published ruling in Ernst vs AER that they intentionally publish fabricated facts and then specifically send them to the media for further publishing? And what’s “reliable” about the supreme court knowingly damaging Canada’s Charter to protect the Charter-violating, polluting, public interest and public health harming frac industry (AER)? What’s “reliable” about the supreme court creating their own rule to be able to keep their dirty doings and deliberations secret forever? So when we want to improve it, we should not try to do it in a way that … we jeopardize the very nature of the institution,” he said.
Public pay, public disclosure
Aaron Wudrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, meanwhile, insists that anyone paid with public dollars should expect a higher level of transparency, whether they’re a cabinet minister or a judge.
“I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be required. They are on the public payroll, and I think there’s a heightened level of scrutiny that public dollars attract,” he said.
“Judges are paid by taxpayers, so taxpayers have a right to know what they’re doing with that money.”
Wudrick accused the government of holding judges to a higher standard than MPs — who can be required by their parties to release their spending but are not legally compelled to do so.
“I think it’s, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,'” he said.
Wudrick said requiring full disclosure of expenses, with receipts, for politicians, officials and judges would serve as a “permanent incentive” for them all to make good decisions about spending.
The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) and Canadian Bar Association (CBA) also have submitted briefs to the Senate committee on the issue, arguing the bill jeopardizes judges’ personal safety and judicial independence, and insisting there are already internal accountability controls to approve and review spending.
“A delicately balanced system designed to reconcile judicial independence with accountability for the expenditure of public funds is already in place. Bill C-58 will disrupt that system,” reads the CBA’s brief.
All three groups want judges to be exempt from disclosure. No wonder, they’re the self-regulators, made up of judges! Failing that, they want them to be included only through aggregate information that does not identify individuals.
A spokesperson for Wilson-Raybould said the bill will enhance transparency and accountability and will not require disclosures that interfere with judicial independence or compromise security.
“Bill C-58 strikes the right balance between the public’s right to know and this fundamental constitutional principle. We will continue to follow the Bill’s study by the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee,” Célia Canon wrote in an email.
