The federal court jurist was one of three candidates on a shortlist drawn up by a new advisory committee of MPs, legal experts and prominent Canadians that had been created by the previous Liberal government.
Ten days later, the new prime minister introduced his own historic reform to the occult practice of selecting justices for the country's highest court. As a condition of employment, Rothstein had to appear before a nationally televised ad hoc, all-party committee of MPs and legal experts - the first Supreme Court nominee ever to do so. Three hours of genteel questioning followed.
Harper hailed the arrival of "more openness and accountability to the process of appointing people to our nation's highest court. I believe the public deserves to know more about the individuals appointed to serve there and the method by which they are appointed," he said.
Eight years on, Harper faces his seventh and possibly last Supreme Court appointment (depending on the results of the 2015 election). Justice Louis LeBel turns 75 on Nov. 30, the mandatory retirement age. He gave his six months' notice on May 23.
But the selection process is once again shrouded in mystery.
The government slammed the door on parliamentary and public involvement in May after a Globe and Mail story revealed explosive insider details about the government's disastrous handling of the 2013 Marc Nadon appointment to replace another retiring justice. Justice Minister Peter MacKay later said the appointment process is "under reconsideration," and it "remains to be determined" how the government will proceed.
With that, a decade of public and parliamentary access to the decision-making, however limited, collapsed.
The government had little more to say this week. "These appointments have always been a matter for the executive and will continue to be," said Clarissa Lamb, spokesperson for MacKay. She suggested consultations with members of the legal community are underway to fill the looming LeBel vacancy.
Today, the exercise of selecting nine of the most important people in the country has regressed to a not-so-distant past when "more was known about the process for electing a new Pope than about the process for selecting a new Supreme Court Justice," writes Adam Dodek, a Supreme Court scholar and law professor at the University of Ottawa.
The former Liberal government of Paul Martin and justice minister Irwin Cotler introduced several reforms beginning in 2004. They included publishing the job criteria and protocol for the process; inviting the public to suggest potential candidates; and creating an advisory committee to vet the longlist of potential candidates.
Once an appointee was named, the justice minister was required publicly to defend the choice before a committee of parliamentarians and judicial and law society representatives.
"We don't know who they've consulted," Cotler said of whatever process is underway to replace LeBel. "We don't know what criteria they're using. We have no advisory selection panel to assist. We have no parliamentary input. We have no public engagement. We're just going to get an announcement."
The utility of placing appointees under the spotlight at public hearings is widely debated. Since 2006 the public hearing committees have been dominated by (Conservative) politicians. The government scrapped the judicial and law society seats on the committee.
The potential ideological bent of lower-court judges is more readily available by reviewing their past reasons for judgment than from polite questioning by MPs.
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: IAN MACLEOD
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