Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy desperate to avoid public hearing into Canadian Judicial Council

by Donald Best, former Sergeant, Toronto Police

Last Monday was a 20-hour day for yours truly and two friends as we printed, sorted and bound ten full sets of my legal response to tactical legal motions by Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy and the Attorney General of Canada.

Justice Shaughnessy launched a tactical legal motion demanding that I pay a security deposit to continue with my public interest case bringing accountability and transparency to the Canadian Judicial Council.

The Attorney General of Canada, abandoning the public interest, also filed a tactical motion to end our campaign to bring public accountability to the CJC.

Unbelievably the Attorney General of Canada is supporting Justice Shaughnessy – whose misconduct is described by several senior lawyers and a retired Crown Attorney as “despotic”, “disgusting”, “reprehensible”, “malicious” and “worthy of his removal from the bench.”

And so two friends and I worked in a cold garage until 1am Tuesday morning to put our legal response together.

Here is what this latest filing meant in materials alone:

  • Appeal Book 4 volumes per set = 1487 pages x 10 sets = 14,870 pages
  • Responding Motion Record 3 volumes per set = 1441 pages x 10 sets = 14,410 pages
  • Factum = 34 pages x 10 copies = 340 pages

29,620 pages in 80 bound volumes that had to be created because Justice Shaughnessy and the Attorney General of Canada want to keep public attention from the Canadian Judicial Council.

After about five hours sleep I was up again at 7am and drove from Barrie to downtown Toronto where I personally served the Attorney General of Canada and Justice Shaughnessy’s lawyer. (No professional document server hired as I did it myself.) Then I met with my lawyer Paul Slansky at the Federal Court building where we filed the materials on time.

Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy (r) & his lawyer, Peter Wardle

Justice Shaughnessy’s legal costs fully covered with no limit.

The court costs of both Justice Shaughnessy and the Attorney General of Canada / CJC are paid by the Government. Not a penny of the judge’s legal costs comes from the his own pocket. The Attorney General and the judge’s lawyers snap their fingers and assistants draft their legal motions, and then print, bind, serve and file everything with not a thought about the costs.

Even the Executive Director of the Canadian Judicial Council, Norman Sabourin, confirmed in a Toronto Star news article that there is no limit on the publicly-paid legal costs when Federal Court justices are defending misconduct allegations. Judges sometimes run up over a million dollars in legal fees and there is not a thing that anyone can do about it.

This is what we are up against in this public interest case. The only way we can compete is by working harder and keeping costs to the absolute minimum. That’s why you’ll find my friends and me printing and binding court documents in a cold garage at 1am. 

Lawyers especially are concerned with Shaughnessy’s misconduct as his actions strike right to the foundations of our justice system and society. Every lawyer I’ve spoken with is concerned that the Canadian Judicial Council dismissed my complaint against the judge without an investigation or even reading the court file. Background story here.

Public awareness is starting to grow. National Self-Represented Litigants Project director Dr. Julie Macfarlane just declared that our CJC challenge is necessary, and another five professors at major law schools also contacted me offering support. Several lawyers regularly send me case law references that they think might assist my lawyer.

Canadians just might make this happen!

Justice Shaughnessy and the Attorney General are also trying desperately to have the next court hearing held privately – not in public.  No wonder!

Coming Soon

I’m busy redacting Identity Information from my latest legal documents and will probably start to post them tonight.

I’ll also be posting breaking news on a strange turn of events. It is confirmed that Federal Court judges and / or court staff performed improper and unrevealed investigations of me, my lawyer and witnesses throughout the 18 months that the case was before that court. 

We have forensically proven, and the court administration has basically admitted in writing, that during the original judicial review hearings in the Federal Court of Canada, employees and/or judges of the FCC conducted extensive private online investigations of me, my witnesses and my lawyer. Even during the actual hearing as my lawyer was speaking to the judge, FCC staff or the judge himself were googling about the case and downloading evidence, information and exhibits from the internet. This is a huge deal in the legal community. 

More coming!

Please contribute $25, $100 or whatever you can to support our 2018 legal challenge to the Canadian Judicial Council. >>>

GoFundMe Donald Best CJC Public Interest Campaign

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Donald Best
Barrie, Ontario, Canada

 

Dr Julie Macfarlane, NSRLP Director at Windsor Law: Donald Best’s CJC Challenge necessary

by Dr. Julie Macfarlane, National Self-Represented Litigants Project

The National Self-Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) of which I am the Director has been extremely concerned – and made this concern clear – for many years about the process for reviewing and adjudicating complaints brought against a member of the judiciary by a member of the public.

Many of the complaints brought to the CJC each year are now brought by self-represented litigants. The “mandate” of the CJC excludes most of these complaints as written.

In order to rebuild public confidence in the judicial system, a robust overhaul of the complaints process – including assistance for members of the public who wish to bring forward a complaint – is essential.

Mr Best’s judicial review claim is an example of the extraordinary lengths to which it is presently necessary to go to draw attention to this flawed system and the lack of public accountability that the CJC reflects.

Yours truly,

Dr Julie Macfarlane
Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law

(Editor’s note: Don’t forget to support the Donald Best CJC Challenge with a small donation at GoFundMe.)

More from Dr. Macfarlane…

Its out! The fully revised 2nd edition of The New Lawyer: How Clients are Transforming the Practice of Law (UBC Press).

https://www.amazon.com/New-Lawyer-Second-Transforming-Practice/dp/0774837071

Named one of Canada’s 25 Most Influential Lawyers

http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/6513/The-Top-25-Most-Influential-2017.html

For information on my research and continuing work on self-represented litigants, including my Blog on Access to Justice and the SRL Phenomenon, go to https://representingyourselfcanada.com/

Follow me on Twitter @ProfJulieMac

Our podcast Jumping Off the Ivory Tower downloadable here https://representingyourselfcanada.com/podcast/