Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Courts — Judges — Judicial ethics — Conseil de la magistrature — Jurisdiction — Motion to terminate ethics inquiry on ground that there no basis for inquiry dismissed — Whether Court of Appeal failed to recognize and apply personal aspect of judicial independence — Whether it erred on issue of scope of jurisdiction of committee of inquiry — Whether it erred in finding that committee’s decision was not unreasonable and did not cause irreversible harm.

In February 2004, the applicant, a judge of the Court of Québec, Youth Division, rendered judgment in a case concerning two children. In his judgment, Judge DuBois expressed concern that a decision he had rendered nine months earlier with respect to the same children had not been executed by the Director of Youth Protection of the Estrie region and that nothing had been done to help them. In response to that judgment, the Director, acting on behalf of the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, lodged a complaint against Judge DuBois with the Conseil de la magistrature du Québec in April 2004. He alleged that although the case of the children in question had not been before the Commission and the Commission had not participated in the proceedings, Judge DuBois had made inaccurate accusations against that body that were inconsistent with the obligations of objectivity, impartiality and reserve that a judge must meet in performing his or her duties, and with the duty to render justice within the framework of the law.

In November 2004, the Conseil established a committee of inquiry to conduct an ethics inquiry. Judge DuBois asked the committee to find that there was no basis for inquiry in the case or to render a preliminary decision terminating the inquiry. The committee refused to do so. The Superior Court granted an application for judicial review in part, but the Court of Appeal reversed that decision and upheld the committee’s decision. In the Court of Appeal’s opinion, it was not unreasonable for the committee to wait for the hearing on the merits before defining the content and limits of Judge DuBois’s ethical obligations [TRANSLATION] “in light of the applicable constitutional and legal principles, which cannot be dissociated from the ethical issues” (para. 15).