"Mrs. Attorney General Madelaine Meilleur" About the crimes committed by the Judges? Ontario fails to track complaints against Crown
attorneys
El error más vil que puede cometer un tirano; es atormentar en mente, cuerpo, y alma, niños indefensos, y llevarlos ante la vista de un soldado que ha librado mil batallas.
Nadir Siguencia
Desafortunadamente, Crímenes de Estado siguen teniendo lugar
en este país; violaciones de derechos humanos cometidas por el sistema
judicial canadiense están bien documentadas y ocurren todos los días en el interior de las salas de audiencia. Pero los actores de estas
atrocidades, no son sólo los abogados de la
corona, también jueces, consejeros de
servicio, policía, abogados de la familia, y los traductores. La corrupción de los jueces y abogados
de la corona en los tribunales de familia y penales son evidentes e inevitables, porque es el resultado
directo de un gobierno y un sistema de justicia que comercializan
deliberadamente con la sangre de los niños, madres, y padres de familia, y en
muchos casos con otras personas
inocentes . La
administración de justicia en este país se caracteriza por su corrupción,
amenazas, e intimidaciones, por parte de los jueces y abogados
de la corona, y la falta de recursos
para la defensa de acusados de cargos falsos. Ausencia
de mecanismos disciplinarios internos para investigar, presentar cargos, y procesar; a jueces y abogados
de la corona por sus crímenes, son factores en la continuación de las violaciones de derechos
humanos, cometidas por el sistema
judicial canadiense.
Ontario fails to track complaints against Crown
attorneys
Attorney
General Madeleine Meilleur says her ministry lacks a centralized system,
raising questions about oversight of misbehaving prosecutors.
RICHARD J. BRENNAN / TORONTO STAR
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Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur
acknowledges that her ministry has no centralized method for tracking
complaints against misbehaving prosecutors.
Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney
General has no idea how many complaints have been lodged against its nearly one
thousand prosecutors from across the province, or how many have been
disciplined for misconduct in recent years.
The lack of organized, accountable
oversight, legal observers say, marks a “failure” by the government to properly
scrutinize complaints against its Crown attorneys: public servants responsible
for making important decisions such as who to prosecute for crimes and
recommending sentences for those found guilty.
“Only with proper oversight can the
public have confidence in our justice system and those who administer it,”
Anthony Moustacalis, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, said in a
statement to the Star.
An ongoing Star investigation has
discovered cases where Crown attorneys were the focus of sexual harassment
complaints and other accusations of misbehavior. The Star’s stories were raised in the provincial legislature, and
Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur was asked to provide an accounting of all
complaints against Crowns and their outcome.
In a letter, written in response to
those questions, Meilleur said: “The Ministry does not have a centralized
system for tracking complaints with respect to Crown Attorneys. Therefore, to
compile global statistics would require a search of each individual personnel
file for all Crown Attorneys employed in over 60 offices across the province.”
Despite not having centralized information
on internal complaints and their outcomes, Meilleur wrote that Crowns are held
to the “highest standard” and “are expected to conduct themselves
professionally and fairly at all times” in accordance with Crown policy and
professional conduct rules dictated by the Law Society, the independent body
that oversees all lawyers.
While the Law Society can investigate
and discipline prosecutors, legal observers say complaints against prosecutors
are often dealt with internally by the ministry — investigations that are kept
secret and, now, evidently not tracked. (The Law Society, which represents
nearly 50,000 lawyers of all types in Ontario, told the Star that over the past
23 years only nine of 2,200 disciplinary hearings have involved prosecutors.)
Meilleur’s letter says complaints to
her ministry from staff or the public against prosecutors are dealt with by
their direct superiors — either the head Crowns in their local office or a
regional director.
“After a review, if the conduct falls
short of expected standards, appropriate remedial or disciplinary action will
be considered,” says the response.
Sylvia Jones, the Conservative MPP who
raised questions about Crown oversight in the legislature this summer, called
the Attorney General’s response “incredibly frustrating.”
Jones said the government is either not
being honest about not having the numbers, or — what she said would actually be
“more disturbing” — they don’t know how many complaints there have been.
“There’s no way for us to judge whether
it’s good or it’s bad, because there’s no numbers,” said Jones. “How do you fix
something if you’re not tracking it?”
Jones requested the information about
complaints and disciplinary actions resulting from those complaints back in
July, by way of filing what is called an order paper, which required a response
from the ministry within four months. The ministry responded just before the
deadline, on Nov. 24. (The Star asked for the same information in August, in
hopes of getting it sooner, but was told by a spokesperson it would “not be
appropriate” to respond to the Star’s request in advance of responding to
Jones’ request.)
Jones filed the order paper after
hearing about a Brampton Crown attorney who left his job in 2012 amid sexual
harassment allegations.
A Star investigation found John Raftery
was the subject of a group sexual
harassment complaint while employed at the Brampton Crown office and received a
hefty payment (double his annual salary, or nearly $370,000) after he suddenly
left his job.
Raftery has declined to comment about
the payout or the allegations of harassment during his time as a Crown.
In January, the former Crown-turned-defence
lawyer was charged with assault and criminal harassment of two young women who
worked at a Mississauga grocery store. Those charges were dropped in October
after the Crown said there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.
That wasn’t the only recent case
involving alleged misbehaviour by prosecutors.
In February, Toronto police charged a Scarborough Crown attorney with assault
causing bodily harm after a late-night pub fight with a colleague. The charges
were dropped in June, and the prosecutor entered into a peace bond stipulating
he would not return to the pub for a year.
In April, another Scarborough Crown
attorney was accused of threatening a youth witness outside a courtroom,
putting the future of a schoolyard assault trial in jeopardy. A judge later ruled his conduct was “unprofessional,”
“crude” and “reprehensible,” but did not abuse the court process.
The ministry has repeatedly said it
does not comment on “confidential human resources matters.”
The Star has filed an
access-to-information request, asking for any records related to alleged
prosecutorial wrongdoing. The ministry denied the request, citing labour
relations issues and solicitor-client privilege. An appeal to the province’s
information and privacy commissioner was also denied.
One Crown attorney, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, said the response from the ministry is unacceptable.
“The system protects the worst Crowns,
who suffer no consequences, professionally or financially,” the prosecutor
said. “The reality is, when Crowns engage in bad behaviour it reflects poorly
on all of us. The fact that Crowns are almost never disciplined and that (the
Ministry of the Attorney General) doesn’t even see fit to track this
information is really demoralizing to the rest of us who try and do a good job
every day.”
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