Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Judiciary Fires a Shot Across Harper's Bows

The Canadian Judicial Council is standing up to Harpo and his effort to undermine the independence of the judiciary in our country.

The council, following former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer and others, has told the megalomaniacal Harpie that it sees real problems in our Furious Leader's decision to stack juicial advisory committees with government appointees. As a clear sign of just how pathetically ignorant Harper is about the judiciary, he's planning on putting cops and laypeople - but only those of his own ilk of course - on these committees to stack the deck.

Pointing out the obvious, that loading the committees with Harpo clones kind of undermines the intended independence of the committees, the Judicial Council drew a clear line in the sand, "The Canadian Judicial Council accepts, despite these changes to the Advisory Committees, that judges can continue to participate in the deliberations of the Advisory Committees, but only if the principle of judicial independence is respected and judicial candidates are recommended strictly on the basis of merits."

If the judges walk out of the advisory committees it will completely gut their authority and leave Harpo exposed as a two-bit pol who would be much better suited to a place like Mississippi than Ottawa.

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