Comedian facing tribunal over a joke

[The_Queen]

Hey, toddlers in tu-tus with full diapers are people too. They have feelings. Meanie.

[Ultimate Paragon]

You know what else is crazy? Letting a political party turn a crucial judicial appointment into a pissy little bullshit game because they don't like the nigger in chief. The real kick in the balls is they are ignoring their constitutional obligations in order to do it and aren't suffering any consequences for it.

Think about that for a minute and then ask yourself how secure you really feel in your constitutional protections now.

That's a red herring and I will ignore it like it deserves to be.

Alright.  Moving on, then.

Let's talk about Canada's judicial appointments.  They're some of the least transparent, most corrupt in the world.

The fact that the Canadian Prime Minister has the sole say in determining who's on the Supreme Court would be laughable if it wasn't so scary.  The fact that Canucks are expected to just blindly trust that their head of government chose qualified, honest justices seems very undemocratic to me.  Imagine if the Canadian equivalent of some teahadi extremist becomes PM.  I mean, the country's previous PM was a global warming denier, so it's not too much of a stretch.  Do you really want somebody like that with complete control over who gets to sit on the country's highest bench?

It gets even scarier.  Did you know that the Prime Minister sometimes outsources judicial appointments?  Since your average Canadian PM has a lot on his or her plate, they sometimes give a committee of lawyers responsibility for them.  The lawyers pick names, and the PM generally rubberstamps them.  Now, delegating authority is hardly unusual, but when you consider what these committees are like, it becomes worrying.  These committees are dominated by members of federal and provincial bar associations.  Do you know what this is?  This is special interest control over a crucial, vital government function.  It's absolutely crazy.

1. We've already talked about this, I think it was Dpareja that made you look like a clown that time.
2. There is a difference between "these Canadian laws and their enforcement is completely stupid" and "judicial appointments" and "Sweden/Greece/France/Timbuktu HUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR." We want you to talk about the first one. You keep trying to bring up the latter two.

If you were referring to this post:

http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=7224.msg292801#msg292801

then, yes, I've been over how the judicial appointments process in Canada--and the strong constitutional conventions that go with it--keeps the system fair and unbiased. I hope to hell that we never get the sort of partisan grilling and "litmus tests" Supreme Court nominees in the US go through, and I especially hope that we never get the horrifically undemocratic travesty of elected judges.

Oh, and that global warming denier? He appointed 8 judges to the Supreme Court during his tenure, seven of whom still sit (one of his appointments replaced his first), and there hasn't been any noticeable shift in the Court's jurisprudence.

We also don't have the bullshit of "Republican-/Democratic-appointed judges step down under Republican/Democratic presidents". One of Harper's appointees, Thomas Cromwell, is stepping down effective September 1:

http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/news/en/item/5189/index.do

Oh, wait, he can't do that, a Liberal's in office! Yeah, fuck that.

Doesn't the lack of transparency ever make you nervous?  Or the lack of regulations governing conflicts of interest?

Seriously, Canadian judges are exempt from conflict of interest regulation, which means they don't have to file asset-disclosure forms.

By the way, did you seriously call elected judges "undemocratic?"  You can call it partisan, yeah, but undemocratic?

And before you go knocking the American system, you should probably keep in mind that the current issues are the exception, not the rule.  They're an anomaly caused by the GOP's current refusal to compromise at all.

[dpareja]

Stephen Harper appointed eight Supreme Court justices during his tenure as Prime Minister. So they'll rule in accordance with his views, right?

Here's five of his justices ruling that the existing prostitution laws (which weren't passed by him, admittedly, but which he might well have wanted to strengthen) were unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13389/index.do

Here's six of them ruling that assisted suicide has to be legal: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14637/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that Vancouver's safe injection site must remain open: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7960/index.do

Here's three of them ruling that he can't have Marc Nadon on the Court* (sort of): https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13544/index.do

Here's five of them ruling that he can't change how the Senate works without consulting the provinces (mostly): http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13614/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that his plan for creating a national securities regulator is unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7984/index.do

*The lone dissenting justice was also a Harper appointee; Justice Rothstein, another Harper appointee, recused himself because he knew there could be a perception of a conflict of interest. (He and Justice Nadon had both sat on the Federal Court before they were named to the Supreme Court.) For the record, I a) think Nadon would have been a Harper toady, unlike his other appointees and b) think Justice Moldaver was correct and that Nadon should have been allowed to sit on the Court as a Quebec justice.

[Art Vandelay]

Is this going to be an ongoing thing now? We're going to be constantly hearing about Canadianlawgate for the next couple of years, aren't we?

[dpareja]

Doesn't the lack of transparency ever make you nervous?  Or the lack of regulations governing conflicts of interest?

Seriously, Canadian judges are exempt from conflict of interest regulation, which means they don't have to file asset-disclosure forms.

Canadian justices recuse themselves over perceived conflicts of interest.

By the way, did you seriously call elected judges "undemocratic?"  You can call it partisan, yeah, but undemocratic?

Yes. I did. Electing judges is undemocratic in that it doesn't just undermine, but annihilates, judicial independence. I'll let John Oliver explain further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poL7l-Uk3I8

And before you go knocking the American system, you should probably keep in mind that the current issues are the exception, not the rule.  They're an anomaly caused by the GOP's current refusal to compromise at all.

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and I urge the Senate to reject it.

In the Watergate scandal of 1973, two distinguished Republicans—Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus—put integrity and the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a corrupt President. They refused to do Richard Nixon's dirty work, and they refused to obey his order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The deed devolved on Solicitor General Robert Bork, who executed the unconscionable assignment that has become one of the darkest chapters for the rule of law in American history.

That act—later ruled illegal by a Federal court—is sufficient, by itself, to disqualify Mr. Bork from this new position to which he has been nominated. The man who fired Archibald Cox does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

And why did Sen. Kennedy go so far to kill Bork's nomination?

If this were carried out as an internal Senate debate, we would have deep and thoughtful discussions about the Constitution, and then we would lose.

That is when the mess began.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Stephen Harper appointed eight Supreme Court justices during his tenure as Prime Minister. So they'll rule in accordance with his views, right?

Here's five of his justices ruling that the existing prostitution laws (which weren't passed by him, admittedly, but which he might well have wanted to strengthen) were unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13389/index.do

Here's six of them ruling that assisted suicide has to be legal: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14637/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that Vancouver's safe injection site must remain open: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7960/index.do

Here's three of them ruling that he can't have Marc Nadon on the Court* (sort of): https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13544/index.do

Here's five of them ruling that he can't change how the Senate works without consulting the provinces (mostly): http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13614/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that his plan for creating a national securities regulator is unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7984/index.do

*The lone dissenting justice was also a Harper appointee; Justice Rothstein, another Harper appointee, recused himself because he knew there could be a perception of a conflict of interest. (He and Justice Nadon had both sat on the Federal Court before they were named to the Supreme Court.) For the record, I a) think Nadon would have been a Harper toady, unlike his other appointees and b) think Justice Moldaver was correct and that Nadon should have been allowed to sit on the Court as a Quebec justice.

And how often do they rule in favor of the bar associations?

[mellenORL]

I'm sorry. What? You have a problem with bar associations? The legal profession groups that are in charge of giving law school grads their law license qualifying exams, amongst many other useful things, including pro bono lawyer referrals for paupers and non-profit groups? You know, the professional organizations that can tell the state to revoke the licenses of bad attorneys? Or, did you think bar associations just like to meet and drink in bars? I mean, yeah, they do, but that's not official - that's just lawyers talking shop over drinks after work. Ever looked up the origin of the word Barrister? Maybe the Bar association refers to the Bar that solicitors (or attorneys, as we call them in Murrica) stand by when addressing the judge in a court of law. Maybe there are corrupt bar associations, I guess that can happen if they have a lot of politicians in them, but what would they be doing? Selling crib sheets to law grads trying to pass the bar exam?

[Ultimate Paragon]

I'm sorry. What? You have a problem with bar associations? The groups that are in charge of giving law school grads their law license qualifying exams, amongst many other useful things, including pro bono lawyer referrals for paupers and non-profit groups? You know, the professional organizations that can tell the state to revoke the licenses of bad attorneys? Or, did you think bar associations just like to meet and drink in bars? I mean, yeah, they do, but that's not official - that's just lawyers talking shop over drinks after work. Ever looked up the origin of the word Barrister? Maybe the Bar association refers to the Bar that solicitors (or attorneys, as we call them in Murrica) stand by when addressing the judge in a court of law. Maybe there are corrupt bar associations, I guess that can happen if they have a lot of politicians in them, but what would they be doing? Selling crib sheets to law grads trying to pass the bar exam?

That was a joke.  I was admitting fault.

[mellenORL]

You made remarks about bar associations twice in the thread. And I still don't get the joke. Maybe if it was in blue type.

"These committees are dominated by members of federal and provincial bar associations.  Do you know what this is?  This is special interest control over a crucial, vital government function.  It's absolutely crazy."

Uh, nope. Didn't do the trick. I'm humor-impaired.

[Ultimate Paragon]

You made remarks about bar associations twice in the thread. And I still don't get the joke. Maybe if it was in blue type.

"These committees are dominated by members of federal and provincial bar associations.  Do you know what this is?  This is special interest control over a crucial, vital government function.  It's absolutely crazy."

Uh, nope. Didn't do the trick. I'm humor-impaired.

Yeah, it was a callback to that.  Considering justices don't consistently rule in favor of the PM who appoints them, I don't see any way for them to operate for the bar's benefit.

[dpareja]

Stephen Harper appointed eight Supreme Court justices during his tenure as Prime Minister. So they'll rule in accordance with his views, right?

Here's five of his justices ruling that the existing prostitution laws (which weren't passed by him, admittedly, but which he might well have wanted to strengthen) were unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13389/index.do

Here's six of them ruling that assisted suicide has to be legal: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14637/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that Vancouver's safe injection site must remain open: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7960/index.do

Here's three of them ruling that he can't have Marc Nadon on the Court* (sort of): https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13544/index.do

Here's five of them ruling that he can't change how the Senate works without consulting the provinces (mostly): http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13614/index.do

Here's two of them ruling that his plan for creating a national securities regulator is unconstitutional: http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7984/index.do

*The lone dissenting justice was also a Harper appointee; Justice Rothstein, another Harper appointee, recused himself because he knew there could be a perception of a conflict of interest. (He and Justice Nadon had both sat on the Federal Court before they were named to the Supreme Court.) For the record, I a) think Nadon would have been a Harper toady, unlike his other appointees and b) think Justice Moldaver was correct and that Nadon should have been allowed to sit on the Court as a Quebec justice.

And how often do they rule in favor of the bar associations?

For specific cases, try:

http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14639/index.do
http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14375/index.do
http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/13191/index.do
http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/7998/index.do

(Note: if your comment was intended as a joke, it went right over my head.)

[The_Queen]

[quote author=Ultimate Paragon link=topic=7224.msg293022#msg293022 date=1458788118

Doesn't the lack of transparency ever make you nervous?  Or the lack of regulations governing conflicts of interest?
[/quote]

It's really about ethics in judicial activism.

[rookie]

So in two weeks you found that the most serious flaw in the Canadian free speech laws is no elected judges?

[Askold]

So in two weeks you found that the most serious flaw in the Canadian free speech laws is no elected judges?

...Which is a good thing.

Honestly, the way USA elects law enforcement officers and judges is scary and leads to horrible, HORRIBLE results.

[rookie]

I thought it was a good thing for other reasons. That's a very nit picky thing. Which I read as the big stuff is good.