Achi news desk-
A rights group accuses a Quebec judge of politicizing the courts after challenging the constitutionality of the province’s language law requiring immediate French translations of English-language judgments.
The non-profit organization Droits Collectifs Québec (DCQ) says Quebec court judge Denis Galiastos placed himself in a conflict of interest with his ruling last month, claiming he violated three sections of the legal code of ethics. The DCQ filed a formal ethics complaint with Quebec’s judicial council, the Conseil de la magistrature, last week.
On May 17, Justice Galiastos raised concerns in his 17-page ruling that an amendment to Quebec’s French-language charter would cause “unfair delays” to trials held in English because of a new requirement to translate rulings into English “immediately and without delay.” .” The amendment was supposed to take effect on June 1, 2024, but its ruling made it “unworkable” because it would slow down the judicial process in Anglophones, according to the ruling.
He raised the issue ahead of the start of the trial he is overseeing for Christine Pride, an Anglophone currently on trial for dangerous driving, impaired driving and criminal negligence in the 2021 death of cyclist Irene Dahm.
“If there is anything unconstitutional in this case, it is this activist political decision by the court to attack laws passed by the Quebec parliament without even being asked to do so by a party,” DCQ CEO Etienne-Alexis Boucher said in a statement on their website.
“This is a negation of the separation of powers and the role of the courts in our civil law in Quebec, whose role is to apply, not legislate.”
Galiastos said the translation of court rulings can take weeks or months to complete, and adding this new requirement in Quebec could force English speakers to wait longer than those judged in French.
However, in Butcher’s complaint, which was filed on June 5, he accused the judge of exceeding the “framework of the law” and ignoring “the limits of the powers of his judicial office.”
He also opposed the ruling of Galateastus on the matter himself and not after any of the parties in the separation case brought it up.
“In doing so, Judge Denis Galiastos placed himself, once again if not intentionally at least in the result, in a situation of conflict of interest and humiliation, while blurring the line between judge and party,” the complaint states.
“Judges are in no way above the law. He does not have the inherent power to set himself up as an inquisitor of the constitutional validity of Quebec laws; much less before they come into force, to declare them invalid on his own initiative, in the name of the Canadian constitutional system, and still less when the parties have requested from him expressly not to do so.”
Quebec’s Judicial Council said it could not comment on specific complaints that are in their early stages.
