Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Another Judge Opts to Retire Following A Judicial Misconduct Complaint

   The Canadian Judicial Council announced yesterday that the Inquiry Committee established to inquire into the conduct of the Honourable F. Newbould permanently stayed its proceedings as a result of the judge's retirement effective June 1st, 2017.  Now retired Justice Newbould was facing a complaint which alleged that he acted improperly by making oral submissions at a public hearing and writing two letters to the City Council with respect to a property dispute which touched cottage lands which his family had owned for over a hundred years.

   Ontario Court of Justice Judge Deborah Livingstone similarly opted to "fully retire" after the writer filed a complaint with the Ontario Judicial Council alleging, among other things, a lack of impartiality in the Re Massiah 2015 proceedings. An article published in The London Free Press on May 31, 2011 entitled "From Justice Deb....to just Deb proclaimed that she was retiring after 21 years as a criminal court judge.  Less than two years prior to her first retirement Justice Livingstone chaired a Hearing Panel of the Justices of the Peace Review Council which recommended the removal from office of His Worship Barroilhet on October 15th, 2009. Following her recommendation for the removal from office of His Worship Massiah in April 2015 and this writer's complaint of judicial misconduct against her, Justice Livingstone opted to "fully retire".

   Complaints of judicial misconduct, like pleadings in an action, are mere allegations until they are proven in a legal proceeding. In the case of both of these judges the fact of their retirement can not equate with findings of misconduct against them.

About the author:

Ernest J. Guiste is a Catholic lawyer who devotes his practice to representing persons
wronged by governmental actors, employers and defending criminal allegations.
His recent defence of H.W. Massiah inspired him to write, A Catholic Lawyer's Prayer,
a plea to the Almighty to protect him from those who may wish to harm him as a result
of his ethical and proper representation of his client.

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