(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
June 27, 2001)
Politics drives our justice system
By Leo Knight
ONE
presumes that when the chief judge of the provincial court takes
a public rip at me then I must be having an effect.
Whether
that effect is positive or negative will be left to the reader
to decide.
Ordinarily
I have my say and I don't respond when others have theirs in
rebuttal. The idea of a good opinion piece is to stimulate
debate.
However,
after reading what Chief PCJ Carol Baird-Ellan wrote in these
pages last week, I'm thinking a few words must be raised in
disagreement.
The
letter was written about my column of May 30 in which I was
critical of recently appointed Judge Ernie Quantz's decision in
the case of Mark Istephan who was convicted of several offences
in relation to the attempted abduction of a 13-year-old girl.
Istephan
was given a conditional sentence and I was critical about it.
Well,
no surprise there.
But, in Her Honour's letter to the editor, it was suggested I did not have my facts straight and she went on to say conditional sentencing was legislated by the federal government and intimated there could be no political interference at a provincial level.
The
practical reality is that conditional sentencing is being
misused by provincial court judges every day in our courts and
not just in the Istephan case. In that case, Istephan grabbed
the 13-year-old girl and tried to drag her into his vehicle. How
can anyone claim that is a "non-violent" offence? If
an attempted physical abduction is not violent, then what is?
But
beyond that, conditional sentencing has become a weapon against
clogging in our courts. If someone is charged with robbery in a
home invasion case, for example, the defence immediately lobbies
for a plea bargain and the overworked Crown lowers the charge to
a simple break and enter and presto, it is now a
"non-violent" offence and a conditional sentence is
back on the table.
The
offender gets a "get-out-of-jail-free" card and the
court docket is quickly reduced by one. But, where's the justice
in that? You can be sure that is not the application the
Standing Committee on Justice in Parliament intended in
introducing conditional sentencing.
Is
the public protected? Hardly. Is there a deterrence aspect to
the sentence? Not in the slightest. Yet, these are the criteria
judges are supposed to weigh in pronouncing a sentence for an
offence.
Conditional
sentencing is about nothing but politics. The politics of
budgeting and funding the corrections branch. The politics of
diverting funds to special interest groups in return for
political support. The politics of not building more
correctional facilities. And the politics of ideological agenda.
It
is the politics that drive our justice system, which led a judge
on Vancouver Island to say, "I have no confidence that
whatever sentence I pronounce will be carried out." Or
another old friend of mine, a provincial court judge who says,
"I have three choices in sentencing: I can give him
nothing; or I could give him nothing; or in the more serious
cases, I can give him nothing."
Judges
are handcuffed in sentencing and this is all about politics,
provincial politics. The point I raised in that column was the
judge involved, Ernie Quantz, had been employed for the last
number of years as the assistant deputy minister in the Attorney
General's office and was directly responsible for implementing
the programs in the criminal justice system. A significant part
of which was the implementation of Dosanjh's policies regarding
conditional sentencing.
I
did not question Quantz's ethics. In fact, I went out of my way
to point out that in checking him out with individuals I do
respect, I received nothing but positive responses. I did
question the application of conditional sentencing in the case
of a clearly dangerous individual who was convicted of the
violent crime of trying to abduct a 13-year-old girl.
Finally, Judge Baird-Ellan said the appointment of judges comes via the Judicial Council and was not political. True. But, the AG makes the appointment based on recommendations of the council and any time an appointment is made by a politician, politics will play a part. The Chief Judge of the Provincial Court was not necessarily wrong and I hope she was not merely trying to obfuscate the point I was making.
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