Well, here’s a hint--they don’t grow on trees although anyone who has spent time in the country’s courts may be somewhat surprised that they do not spring from branches. Nor do men and women receive judicial appointments because they finished at the top of their class in judge school. The reality is that the selection of judges is solely based upon patronage and unless we change how members of the judiciary are selected, their appointments will remain in the hands of the government of the day that does not have to account to anyone for its decisions.
Last week, Benoit Corbeil, a former executive director of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada, dropped what the Toronto Star claimed was another "bombshell". Corbeil said that a small group within the Liberal Party doled out rewards, including judgeships to some lawyers, who worked for the party during the 2000 federal election campaign.
Care must be taken to avoid doing what the Star did--lumping all less than stellar acts of the government in with the other revelations that are emerging on an almost daily basis from the Gomery Commission. as unsavoury as the way judges are appointed in this country may be, it is not a crime for the Liberal Party to appoint Liberal-friendly lawyers to the bench. This process should not put into the same category as such criminal acts as fraud, forgery, theft and money laundering which seems to have been just the normal routine for the Natural Governing Party.
The federal government is responsible for all judicial appointments above the level of the provincial court benches. These appointments are made by the prime minister after consultations and there is nothing to prevent recommendations coming from those that Benoit Corbeil described as having doled out the judgeships after the 2000 campaign. There are no qualifications to become a judge other than membership in good standing in a provincial law society for a certain number of years. and the way that the Chrétien/Martin government makes judicial appointments is no different than the way governments that preceded them did, including previous Progressive Conservative governments. Governments who make these appointments want judges who share their beliefs and values, so it is only natural that they select those who have worked for the party and have displayed their political leanings. There is no similarity in the appointment of a lawyer who has worked on a political campaign with advertising executives who were awarded millions of taxpayer dollars for doing nothing other than going out to lunch to exchange cash-filled envelopes.
The Conservative Party should be very very careful if they try and go after the government for this. although the CPC is a new party, many of its members have long standing ties with the old Progressive Conservatives. and as sleazy as Chrétien and Martin are, no one could outdo Brian Mulroney when it came to handing out plum patronage appointments. The Immigration and Refugee Board, the most prestigious quasi judicial tribunal was a prime example. The Mulroney government made appointments without any regard to the ability of its members to conduct quasi judicial hearings on matters so vitally important, not only to those that appeared before it, but to the country. One group of members appointed after the Board’s inception in 1989 was known as "the divorcees". They were women whose long term marriages to Mulroney’s buddies had broken up. Having stayed at home during their marriages, they were virtually unemployable when they separated from their husbands. What better way to get the friend off the hook from huge alimony and child support payments than to give the wife a $90,000 a year appointment? although the Liberals still make these and similar appointments, they at least try to appoint Liberal favourites with some degree of competence.
We need to change the way to judges are appointed in this country. While no one wants to see the seemingly endless confirmation hearings that are being conducted south of the border, we need some type of hearing to establish who is and is not qualified to sit on the bench. Until that happens, lawyers are going to be appointed based upon their ties to the government of the day and these ties will include working on election campaigns.
according to Corbeil, out of the 20 or so lawyers who worked on the 2000 federal election campaign, seven or eight were appointed to the bench. all we can hope for under the current system is that these seven or eight were the most qualified. This revelation was no "bombshell".