SERIES OF RESPONSES TO AN ARTICLE BY AUDREY MACKLIN AND LORNE WALDMAN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Yes, this is a very serious matter, and it works to destroy the integrity of our traditional politics.
But Harper and his band of political mediocrities, in almost everything, ape the Republican Party in the U.S.
I don't know how many readers are aware of it, but for many years this judge-bashing was a favorite them among Republicans: creepy politicians like Tom Delay (convicted felon), Phil Gram, and Newt ("I divorced my wife while she was dying of cancer") Gingrich specialized in this.
It is one more way of driving wedges into our politics, changing the nature of our traditionally civil national politics into the kind of hissing and spitting that absolutely characterize America's national politics.
One has to ask, too, why the Globe keeps publishing representatives of this Appalachian Throwback movement, giving voice to our cultural destruction, especially the nasty Tom Flanagan?
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At the very heart of this American Republican-inspired cheap political tactic is the nature of law in a democratic society.
It is virtually impossible to write any law so precisely that every single possibility and thousands of future cases will be covered to the letter, let alone doing so for the vast body of our laws.
That's why we have judges, and why we absolutely must have judges.
And that is why when people like Minister Jason Kenney attack judges, they show no respect for law and order.
It does not take a great intellect to understand that if you undermine law and order, you undermine democracy.
There can be no true democracy without law and order.
It's like saying you can pour concrete without a mold.
Oh, how many poor people in this world – people like those we just witnessed in Egypt – dream and pray for a society of laws and the democracy that accompanies it.
As another writer has astutely observed, Mr. Kenney is in the privileged position of being able to change the laws he doesn't like, or at least making an honest effort to do so.
No, instead he takes the low road, the cheap tactic of a felon like Republican Tom Delay, and attacks the learned people whose necessary job is to interpret the law.
In essence, he turns the principles of the relationship between laws and democracy on their head.
Hateful stuff, absolutely, besides introducing divisiveness and vituperation into our politics.
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From another reader:
“If they don't want criticisms from Cabinet Ministers, then I strongly suggest they refrain from rendering decisions based on their left-wing political idealogy [sic].”
You, like the Minister, have not thought out the full implications of what you advocate.
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From another reader:
“While judges are rightly independent of the Executive…”
This reveals clearly the American origin of these views. Parliamentary systems do not have "an Executive branch"
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From another reader:
"Nonsense. Ministers are democratically elected - judges are not."
Thirty percent of Canadians support Harper - his claims for democratic support are tenuous and really a technical byproduct of our system.
As long as he keeps to reasonable path, his lack of a mandate can be tolerated.
Just one of the problems you miss here is the inappropriateness of a government without a mandate doing extreme things.
It is a very important matter.
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From another reader:
“If a federal minister does not like the outcome of a court decision he has options available to him that the average critic does not. He can introduce a bill to parliament that amends the law…”
Oh, yes, exactly. What all the advocates of American-style combative divisiveness miss entirely.
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From another reader:
"When judges misrepresent the law or the wishes of the people they don`t represent democracy"
Judges do not misrepresent the law, their very job is to interpret it.
Indeed, if they misrepresent the law, they can be reversed and ultimately removed.
This kind of slur gives us a society of declining civility.
And what my friend are the "wishes of the people"?
The Minister and his boss represent the views of about thirty percent of Canadians.
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From another reader:
"Judges start out as lawyers, can a zebra change it`s stripes!"
"It's" is the contraction for "it is."
"Its" is the possessive you intended.
I do think, also, when you ask a question it is usual to use a question mark, not an exclamation point.
And please think about what you've written.
All lawyers are useless or evil?
What kind of a society would we have with no laws?
Russia.
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From the same reader:
“Chuckman is a retired school teacher who over estimates his importance, and blathers out his a$$”
I think it not unfair to suggest that the author should know the words to the song before getting up to sing.
Retired school teacher?
Sorry, I am the retired chief economist for one of Canada's largest oil companies, as he might easily have checked. I’m all over the Internet and even the Globe has a snippet of my background.
But that’s not what silly blubberers do before they blubber, is it?
No, they just type without bothering about facts. That way we can be sure it comes from the heart, or is it from some other organ, like the spleen?
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From another reader:
"There is nothing in our society that says judges are above criticisim."
You miss the point entirely.
Judges are not above criticism, and no one claimed that.
And you offer the logical fallacy of a straw-man argument in saying so.
But when ministers of the government crititicize judges in public, they are very much doing more than the average citizen's doing so.
They are introducing a divisive and belligerent quality into our politics, and they undoubtedly serve to diminish respect for judges and the law amongst many citizens.
That is playing with the devil for the sake of a cheap gain.
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From another reader:
"To assert elected members must quietly acquiesce to appointed persons is surely non-sensical and outright anti-democratic."
No, you are just wrong, it is not.
The judges, if understand the matter at all, are absolutely essential to our system, and when something is necessary, it must be treated with respect.
Judges may be reversed or thrown out, and new judges may be appointed.
But when you do as Mr. Kenney has done, future appointments will only be received with less respect.
We may easily enter a pointless and destructive cycle of ever-lowering respect for law and order.
Eroding respect for the people charged with such a grave and necessary task as interpreting the law moves us down a road that is destructive of our institutions.
It is the Conservatives who make all the noise about law and order.
Yet they kick dirt at judges?
You cannot have it both ways.
Anyone who says so only demonstrates the lack of thought at work here.
