Judicial Discipline through the Prism of Public Law Values: A Critical Analysis of Bill C-9, An Act to Reform the Judges Act

Bill C-9 is the first legislative reform to the Judges Act in five decades. The goal of the legislation is to enhance public confidence in the administration of justice by modernizing the complaints and discipline system for federally appointed judges. In a previous essay published in Volume ?? of the Advocates’ Quarterly we offered a normative framework for assessment of a complaints and discipline system and identified seven key strengths of Bill C-9. In this sequel, we continue to apply this normative framework and argue that the legislation is marred by five significant weaknesses. We conclude that because the reforms were driven by crisis thinking they over-emphasized two values – independence and efficiency – at the expense of several other equally significant values, including impartiality, transparency, accountability, participation, representation and responsive justification. Consequently, Bill C-9 will likely fail as an attempt to enhance public confidence in the administration of justice.