Supreme Court of Canada remains intact

National Post, December 10, 2010

By Lorne Gunter,

Thank God for the Senate and its willingness to thwart Bill C-232.

It would be far better if the Senate were elected. Then this would be a case of one elected body overturning the will of another. There would be more democratic legitimacy to the move.

Nonetheless, the Senate should be praised for being willing to stop the House of Commons in its attempt to bring in a disastrous, divisive new piece of legislation that would require all future appointees to the Supreme Court to be fluently bilingual -- and not just fluent in conversational French and English, but fluent in the vocabulary of both our Common and Civil law traditions.

The bill, supported by the Liberals, News Democrats and Bloc, would require all future appointees to our highest court to be able to hear cases without the aid of simultaneous translation. Future justices would have to have an understanding of both English and French legalese nearly equal to that of the professional translators currently employed by the Supreme Court.

It is a ridiculous requirement that would limit the pool of potential justices to a few hundred legal scholars and lower-court justices. It would place language competence above legal knowledge as a prerequisite for sitting on the court and, more disturbing still, it would have the effect of limiting selection to a tiny geographic area -- the so-called "bilingual belt" from Ottawa, through Montreal and Quebec City, to Moncton. Outside that region, few lawyers or judges posses the linguistic requirements to sit on the court that decides important Charter cases and sets the precedents that directs Canada's legal life.

If the bill has teeth, few future justices would come from outside of Quebec, the capital region or northern New Brunswick.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's response to this criticism is that ambitious lawyers and judges could take the time to learn both official languages. But once again, this puts language skills ahead of legal ones. Not only that, it would give a huge advantage to judges and lawyers who live and work in those few regions of the country where both languages are commonly spoke. It is not enough to take classes in another language if one wishes to become fluent, one must also use the new language on an almost daily basis, which is next to impossible outside the bilingual belt.

lgunter@shaw.ca

---<RWR>---

Read more: nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Power+periphery/3956077/story.html#ixzz17kY80Kq4