Yet, with the appointment of Justice Russell Brown of Alberta to the top court, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has abandoned any pretence of openness and accountability in the process of selecting the country’s most senior judges.
For the third successive time, Harper has simply announced his choice, reverting to the old practice of making Supreme Court appointments the sole prerogative of the prime minister. This is perfectly legal – but it runs counter to a decade of attempts by all parties to make appointments more transparent, and to what the Conservatives themselves committed to doing in the early days of their government.
Back then, they promised to consult more widely on nominations to the top court and to give MPs a chance to question nominees. They did that for two early nominations, but when Harper’s badly thought-out attempt to name Marc Nadon to a Quebec seat on the court blew up in his face in 2013 all that went out the window.
When Harper appointed justices Clément Gascon and Suzanne Côté last year, he simply named them in what former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler called “a serious regression to a process that is secret, unaccountable and unrepresentative.”
The prime minister continued that on Monday by appointing Justice Brown, a member of Alberta’s Court of Appeal with an academic background and a reputation as a judicial conservative. We don’t know much about him – and with no outside examination of his record we’re unlikely to find out a lot more before he takes up his duties at the Supreme Court.
This is unfortunate at a time when the court has been outspoken on some of the most important issues confronting the country – from assisted suicide to the laws governing prostitution to the government’s “tough on crime” laws. More openness in naming judges would increase public knowledge of and confidence in the court, which can only be healthy.
Yet the government tossed all that aside, apparently out of simple pique at the court’s ruling that Nadon was not eligible to fill one of its Quebec seats.
Justice Brown is the seventh judge to be appointed to the nine-member Supreme Court during Harper’s tenure. The prime minister has had every opportunity to shape the court for years to come, yet his own appointees have handed the government a string of setbacks on key issues.
The court declared the country’s prostitution laws unconstitutional in December 2013. It ruled in April 2014 that the government’s plans to overhaul the Senate unilaterally were illegal. And earlier this year it gave Parliament a year to come up with new guidelines for assisted suicide and struck down the government’s law on mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes.
No one knows how Justice Brown will rule once he joins the Supreme Court. But so far the record shows that his colleagues – mostly conservative-minded Harper appointees – have all too often found that the government’s legislative track record fails to meet their test of legality and justice.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Editorial
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