A few months before the retirement of Manitoba Chief Justice Richard Chartier, the Association des juristes d’expression française du Manitoba (AJEFM) wants to appoint four bilingual judges to the Court of Appeal and Court of Manitoba Queen’s Bench. He sent a letter to Canada’s federal Minister of Justice and Attorney General, David Lametti.
“We expect that in the short to medium term, two trends […] gradually leading to a stronger French presence in the legal field and in the courts, ”Mamadou Ka, secretary of the Association’s board of directors wrote in this letter.
The two trends in question are the increasing demand for French legal services, due to the arrival of many French-speaking immigrants; and increasing the supply of legal services in French, thanks to graduates in immersion schools.
Despite this, the judges who can practice French are not enough many in the province according toAJEFM. In addition to Mr. Chartier’s departure, the two French-speaking supernumerary judges of the Manitoba Court of Appeal will also retire next fall.
This is why the Association is asking Minister Lametti to appoint two bilingual judges for the Court of Appeal and two for the Court of Queen’s Bench, one in the Family Division, one in the general.
In fact, the Family Division currently does not have any French -speaking judges. So General Division judges have to face French hearings for family cases.
French -speaking litigants, in our view, are not dealt with because their family law cases are heard by judges who are not expert in this field.Mr. Ka explained in an argument accompanying his letter to the Minister of Justice.
Another argument in favor of these nominations, the translation problems. The sales pitch highlights the difficulty for translators to provide translation immediately when exchanges are fast.
In addition, he mentioned mistakes that could get in the way of translation and ruin the understanding of the comments made.
The argument leads to an article by Professor Michel Doucet in which he recounted a trial that had recourse to immediate translation. I then asked myself the question of whether I had done my client a good service by using French for my pleadings: a doubt that one should not have when pleading a case before the highest. court of an official bilingual country such as Canadacan we read
The beautiful moment
With fall retirements, we expect appointments in late September to early October, so we have an extension of a few months to let the government know of our requests.explanation by Guy Jourdain, transition advisor forAJEFM.
Mr. Jourdain hopes that these requests will be heard and he is confident that this will happen.
In 2019, we met Mr. Lametti who said he was very open to appointing a bilingual judge, but said we don’t have a sufficient group of candidates. He’s bigger now so we have a better chance.
The letter sent to the Federal Minister of Justice on Friday has not yet received a response, but is expected shortly, according to the adviser.
With information from Patrick Foucault
Source: Radio-Canada
