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Ottawa Justice of the peace should be fired for criticizing courts in newspaper article, discipline panel rules

An Ottawa justice of the peace “irreparably undermined public confidence” in her ability to do her job after she wrote a newspaper commentary that criticized the bail system and the conduct of Crown attorneys, a disciplinary panel has found.

And for that, Julie Lauzon should be fired, the panel recommended Friday.

Criminal defence lawyers said the recommendation was unnecessarily harsh, and that Lauzon was highlighting real systemic problems in Ontario’s bail system — some of which they say have improved in the years since the National Post published her commentary in 2016.

[…]

“At the end of the day, she was prophetic, she was vindicated and, at great personal cost to herself, she likely is in great part responsible for some of the very necessary changes that have come about since she wrote that op-ed,” Ottawa criminal defence lawyer Michael Spratt told the Star.

Read Jacques Gallant’s full article: Toronto Star

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