The impeachment of judge Michel Girouard recommended

Archival Photo DIDIER DEBUSSCHÈRE
Judge Michel Girouard

Kathleen Frenette

Tuesday, February 20, 2018 15:20

UPDATE
Tuesday, 20 February 2018 15:29

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After three months of deliberations, the canadian judicial Council has recommended to the minister of Justice the removal of the judge Michel Girouard, who had tried, before a committee of inquiry, “to mislead the Commission by hiding the truth.”

Appointed to the superior Court in September 2010, judge Michel Girouard found himself at the heart of the news a few years later when the findings of an investigation conducted by the Sûreté du Québec have been revealed to be the result of the operation Crayfish, which targeted cocaine trafficking in the Abitibi region.

In a spinning mill, investigators from the SQ had been the witnesses of a transaction of “illegal substance” between the man, then lawyer, and Yvon Lamontagne, owner of a video club.

The judge Girouard had been called to testify before a committee of inquiry. However, two of the three members of the committee had “concluded that judge Michel Girouard had attempted to mislead the investigation committee”, warranting a recommendation of “impeachment”.

The third member, meanwhile, had “disagreed”, saying that the inconsistencies involved that the explanations of the judge Girouard were “not surprising”, given, among other things, the length of time which had elapsed since the events.

In the end, the judicial Council had not recommended the removal of the judge, concluding that no evidence supported the allegation that the judge would have bought an illegal substance about two weeks before her appointment.

In June 2016, the ministers of Justice and attorneys general of Canada and of Quebec were so-called “concerned by the fact that the conclusions of the first committee relating to the credibility and integrity of the judge had not been addressed nor resolved”.

A second survey was conducted and the judge Girouard was again called to testify.

“In each case, the committee has rejected the testimony of the judge as being inconsistent, contradictory, improbable or in conflict with other testimony.”

In the end, the committee concluded that the judge had “failed to honour and dignity”, that his “integrity had been irreparably compromised”, that the “public confidence in the judiciary had been shaken” and that the judge was now unfit to effectively fulfil its functions.