March – 3 April 2009
Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations
By letter received 20 November 2007, the author challenged the State party submission. The author explains that she referred to her loss of property rights in 1962 as background information to give the Committee an understanding of why she sought relief from ’s civil dispute resolution system.
The author submits that although her lawyers were privately retained, private lawyers are, under Canadian law, officers of the court, an arm of the state, and the lawyers are ministers of justice – a state function.
The author submits that she exhausted domestic remedies when she made application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada and her application was refused without reason. She is unaware of any domestic forum where she can pursue her grievance against the members of the judiciary. There are no remedies available in in a case where a party encountered judicial bias at trial, except through the appeal process which she exhausted. She set out detailed evidence of institutional bias by the judiciary and legal profession in in her application for leave to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The author submits that in her initial submission she provided corroborating evidence supporting her allegation that the civil dispute resolution system in is not independent in cases where a person is suing a lawyer.
With regards to the non-substantiation of the allegations of judicial bias, the author claims that some of these are observations concerning the nature of Canada’s dispute resolution system, and its members are notorious in the global legal jurisprudence where a frequent recurring criticism of the Anglo-American common law system of dispute resolution is its reliance on lawyers and the sub-group of lawyers who occupy the judicial function. The author claims that she also set out specific instances of conduct by the trial judge that substantiate her allegations of judicial bias.
With reference to the State party’s submission that there has been no attack on her honour and reputation, the author claims that the judges at trial and at the Court of Appeal attacked her credibility and, falsely, and found fault with her rather than the lawyers who failed her at every level.
Finally, the author submits that her allegations are not as “sweeping and general” as the State party suggests, but are narrowly focused on the issue of bias that arises in a case where a party is suing a lawyer in a court system managed and operated by the legal profession.
Issues and proceedings before the Committee
The Human Rights Committee therefore decides: (a) That the communication is inadmissible under articles 2, 3 and 5, paragraph 2(b), of the Optional Protocol;