Unbelievable
You will remember that the CHRT did not have a court reporter present during the proceeding in which the conduct of the CHRC investigators was under scrutiny. Which meant that the respondent and various commentators have been relying on hand transcribed versions of the hearing. Well, Ezra now has a beautiful transcript pf Warman v Lemire which was made available to a journalist by a CHRC official who was trying to spin the story.
Now, contrary to Ezra’s account the used of a digital recording which is then transcribed was not a special, for this hearing only, matter. Rather it is supposed to become routine for CHRT hearings.
What is outrageous is that the CHRC apparently got the transcript and then did not tell anyone it was available.
This is simply corrupt. For the government to make a transcript and then use it for public relations purposes rather than making it available to the parties is utterly unfair. As Ezra points out, if a prosecutor in a real court tried a stunt like this the judge might well toss the case as the conduct is so patently unfair.
This is one more reason that the full circumstances, procedures and personnel surrounding s. 13 investigations must be investigated by a judge. It is not just the Lemire matter any longer: there is a culture of corruption and procedural perversion at the CHRC which has tainted every one of its s. 13 prosecutions. Each needs to be re-opened.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Nah. Better to spend time and resources on re-opening more urgent cases of injustice. Like Mumia, the Rosenbergs, and if the budget permits, Sacco and Vanzetti.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:08 am
The silence from the left is understood due to embarrassment, but it is deafening, isn’t it?
If a small-time drug dealer had to fight such a corrupt and outright incompetent system, there would probably already be a CBC mini-series and an award-winning Toronto Star article…
It seems the CHRC probably didn’t start out to make Lemire a martyr, but they are making it easy.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along. Utterly disgraceful. And the bar associations and the rest of the “justice” system lay low—it’s inspiring in a sick way.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Actually James, the silence from the left arises from the fact that the right has got its knickers in a knot over nothing. Anyone – party or non party—had the ability to order transcripts made from the digital recording of the proceedings before the tribunal that day. Apparently, only the CHRC chose to do so, likely because their conduct was the subject of the hearing. They are under no legal obligation to pass out copies or make the transcript available generally. If Lemire or Ezra or anyone else wants a copy, they can call up StenoTran, the reporting service, and get one. (Subsequent copies are generally cheaper than the first, for obvious reasons).
Ezra’s suggestion that this is like the police making a transcript of proceedings in a criminal case on a day when the court reporter doesn’t show is laughable. If Ezra paid attention when he was in court—he claims to be a practicing lawyer or so he claims—he would have noticed court reporters are a rarity, only used if the parties need real-time transcipts. Court use tape – and have used for some tape for some time. Even sillier is the notion that a court would proceed without a record or would allow an interested party create the official records.
There is a legitimate debate about limits on speech in human rights statutes, but this braying about procedural irregularities from people unfamiliar with the procedural aspects of administrative tribunals (and some particularly loud braying from folks like Levant, who should know better) is a ridiculous sideshow. So is Jay’s call for a judicial inquest, which is based on unproven allegations from suspect sources.
May 11th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Why worry about process when justice is not the sought outcome?
May 12th, 2008 at 3:26 am
There are several highly questionable things associated with the Lemire transcript: first, the transctipt policy change in mid-case; second, the policy change put into effect just in time for a hearing that could and did go very badly for the CHRC; and third, the transcript was apparently leaked – not sold, not ordered from the transcription company, but peddled anonymously like some sleazy divorce court evidence in a back alley to a reporter who was then supposed to shine up the Commission’s image. This is literally sickening. The commission is not only operating under a flawed mandate, it is seriously flawed itself. What it does is wrong. The way it operates is wrong.