To hire or not to hire: "A candidate is not measured by the conduct of his or her family members"
Good Day Readers:
Here's the problem with your statement Ms Blatchford. Supposing you're interviewing candidates for a position that is very sensitive. The successful person will be privy to some really delicate information. So in walks Candidate "A." Bright, articulate, of good pedigree, antecedents that stretch around the block (Sorry for the bad pun!) - everything you as an employer could possibly want but there's one slight problem.
In background checking "A" low and behold it is uncovered they have a very close relative who's a borderline psycho with a baseball bat, biker connections and a rap sheet as long as your left arm. So what would you do Ms Blatchford look the other way and hire "A"
And you Ms Block?
Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk.
By Christie Blatchford
Thursday, June 14 29012
 |
| Jack King (left); Justice Lori Douglas; Alexander Chapman |
If it looks like a witch hunt and stinks like a witch hunt, it’s probably a
witch hunt, however it’s dressed up.
So it is with the Canadian Judicial Council’s release Thursday of the formal allegations against Manitoba Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas.
The matter moves to a hearing in Winnipeg later this month.
This mess first hit the fan about two years ago when the CBC with egregious smarminess, broke the story about how, a few years before Judge Douglas was appointed to the bench, her lawyer husband Jack King had posted sexually explicit pictures of her on a website, advertised her alleged fondness for black men and then tried to set her up with one such, a former client named Alexander Chapman.
Mr. Chapman, a quick study (he was convicted of arson, theft and uttering death threats in 1993 but legally changed his name and got a pardon), had a lawyer send what was essentially a demand letter for $100,000 to Mr. King’s firm.
Mr. King, who as it turns out was in spectacular mid-breakdown, had to come clean about what he’d done, to his firm and his wife, paid Mr. Chapman $25,000 personally in exchange for his signature on a confidentiality agreement and a promise to destroy all the pictures, left the firm and spent a year off work, being treated for depression.
That was in the early summer of 2003.
The scandal was if not the talk of the town, of the local legal bar.
By December of 2004, when Judge Douglas filled out the application form for the judiciary, everyone who should have known, and their dogs, knew.
According to the response filed by Sheila Block, Judge Douglas’s lawyer, the then-Chief Justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, Marc Monnin, was at that time “aware that nude photos of a private nature had been posted on the Internet.” He was sufficiently concerned about the risk of blackmail that he objected to Judge Douglas’s candidacy.
But by the fall of 2004, with nothing further having surfaced, the Chief Justice “removed his objection, members of the bench encouraged Ms. Douglas to apply,” and so she did.
The judicial appointments committee that in 2005 considered her application was aware of Mr. King’s conduct, and asked its lawyer to contact her “regarding the intimate photos that had been placed on the Internet.”
The lawyer did that.
She answered all of his questions.
According to Ms. Block’s response, “a member of the [justice] minister’s staff, who was aware of the fact that her husband had once offered her for sexual services” also spoke to Judge Douglas.
The matter was fully discussed at the committee, where members “knew that the pictures were sexual in nature” and that they had been on the web, but the committee still recommended her.
But they also flagged her application “for the minister” — it was then-Liberal justice minister and now MP Irwin Cotler — “so he would be aware of it.”
Furthermore, in the fall of 2005 at another proceeding (the documents don’t say what that was), four judges of the Manitoba Court of Appeal also learned of the pictures, that they had been placed on the web in violation of Judge Douglas’s privacy rights, and sealed the record.
What Judge Douglas didn’t do, when filling out the “personal history form” for appointment, was to try to reduce this ghastly and convoluted tale to print. Asked, “Is there anything in your past or present which could reflect negatively on yourself or the judiciary, and which should be disclosed?”, she answered, “No.”
That is her alleged failure to disclose, though in fact, Judge Douglas had disclosed all over hell’s half acre.
She is also accused of sexually harassing Mr. Chapman.
It was, of course, Mr. King who did that.
Ms. Block’s response flatly calls this charge “a complete fabrication. She has been the victim of wrongdoing by both her husband and Mr. Chapman.” The judge knew nothing of what her husband was doing online.
The final significant charge is that this whole sorry saga, and the fact that there were sexual pictures of Judge Douglas on the web posted there without her knowledge, is alleged to mean that the “confidence of individuals appearing before the judge, or of the public in its justice system, could be undermined” and that she is thus incapable.
There are two important things to remember. One is that when the CJC’s inquiry committee first ruled on this, last month, it found that “it is in the public interest that even very weak claims be publicly tried,” legal politesse for, “This is a really crappy case but we’re moving on with it anyway so we don’t seem to be hiding anything.”
Finally, as Ms. Block put it so magnificently in part of her response, “a candidate is not measured by the conduct of his or her family members.”
Nor should a judge be so measured, or to put it in plainer English, fitted for the stake.
Postmedia News
cblatchford@postmedia.com
So it is with the Canadian Judicial Council’s release Thursday of the formal allegations against Manitoba Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas.
The matter moves to a hearing in Winnipeg later this month.
This mess first hit the fan about two years ago when the CBC with egregious smarminess, broke the story about how, a few years before Judge Douglas was appointed to the bench, her lawyer husband Jack King had posted sexually explicit pictures of her on a website, advertised her alleged fondness for black men and then tried to set her up with one such, a former client named Alexander Chapman.
Mr. Chapman, a quick study (he was convicted of arson, theft and uttering death threats in 1993 but legally changed his name and got a pardon), had a lawyer send what was essentially a demand letter for $100,000 to Mr. King’s firm.
Mr. King, who as it turns out was in spectacular mid-breakdown, had to come clean about what he’d done, to his firm and his wife, paid Mr. Chapman $25,000 personally in exchange for his signature on a confidentiality agreement and a promise to destroy all the pictures, left the firm and spent a year off work, being treated for depression.
That was in the early summer of 2003.
The scandal was if not the talk of the town, of the local legal bar.
By December of 2004, when Judge Douglas filled out the application form for the judiciary, everyone who should have known, and their dogs, knew.
According to the response filed by Sheila Block, Judge Douglas’s lawyer, the then-Chief Justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, Marc Monnin, was at that time “aware that nude photos of a private nature had been posted on the Internet.” He was sufficiently concerned about the risk of blackmail that he objected to Judge Douglas’s candidacy.
But by the fall of 2004, with nothing further having surfaced, the Chief Justice “removed his objection, members of the bench encouraged Ms. Douglas to apply,” and so she did.
The judicial appointments committee that in 2005 considered her application was aware of Mr. King’s conduct, and asked its lawyer to contact her “regarding the intimate photos that had been placed on the Internet.”
The lawyer did that.
She answered all of his questions.
According to Ms. Block’s response, “a member of the [justice] minister’s staff, who was aware of the fact that her husband had once offered her for sexual services” also spoke to Judge Douglas.
The matter was fully discussed at the committee, where members “knew that the pictures were sexual in nature” and that they had been on the web, but the committee still recommended her.
But they also flagged her application “for the minister” — it was then-Liberal justice minister and now MP Irwin Cotler — “so he would be aware of it.”
Furthermore, in the fall of 2005 at another proceeding (the documents don’t say what that was), four judges of the Manitoba Court of Appeal also learned of the pictures, that they had been placed on the web in violation of Judge Douglas’s privacy rights, and sealed the record.
What Judge Douglas didn’t do, when filling out the “personal history form” for appointment, was to try to reduce this ghastly and convoluted tale to print. Asked, “Is there anything in your past or present which could reflect negatively on yourself or the judiciary, and which should be disclosed?”, she answered, “No.”
That is her alleged failure to disclose, though in fact, Judge Douglas had disclosed all over hell’s half acre.
She is also accused of sexually harassing Mr. Chapman.
It was, of course, Mr. King who did that.
Ms. Block’s response flatly calls this charge “a complete fabrication. She has been the victim of wrongdoing by both her husband and Mr. Chapman.” The judge knew nothing of what her husband was doing online.
The final significant charge is that this whole sorry saga, and the fact that there were sexual pictures of Judge Douglas on the web posted there without her knowledge, is alleged to mean that the “confidence of individuals appearing before the judge, or of the public in its justice system, could be undermined” and that she is thus incapable.
There are two important things to remember. One is that when the CJC’s inquiry committee first ruled on this, last month, it found that “it is in the public interest that even very weak claims be publicly tried,” legal politesse for, “This is a really crappy case but we’re moving on with it anyway so we don’t seem to be hiding anything.”
Finally, as Ms. Block put it so magnificently in part of her response, “a candidate is not measured by the conduct of his or her family members.”
Nor should a judge be so measured, or to put it in plainer English, fitted for the stake.
Postmedia News
cblatchford@postmedia.com
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 6:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home