NATIONAL POST

Saturday, March 13, 1999

Fathers' group to file complaint against high court

All nine justices: Challenge targets 'feminist' slant of Supreme Court

Janice Tibbetts

Southam News

[PHOTO] Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube

A national fathers' group has taken the debate over the Canadian

judiciary to a new level, vowing to file a complaint against all nine

judges on the Supreme Court of Canada for their "feminist" slant in

decisions that deny men access to children after divorce.

The National Shared Parenting Association, which lodged a complaint

with the Canadian Judicial Council yesterday against Supreme Court

Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube, plans to file an expanded challenge

next week against the whole bench.

The unprecedented move is the latest twist in an escalating debate

over the judiciary that has resulted in numerous complaints to the

judicial council in the last two weeks, several against both Justice

L'Heureux-Dube and Justice John McClung, of the Alberta Court of

Appeal.

"We feel public debate has opened up and we're attempting to raise the

level of the public debate to take a look at what's going on with the

judiciary," said Danny Guspie, a Toronto paralegal and executive

director of the two-year-old association.

"It's our understanding that the courts are supposed to be impartial

and they should not be promoting gender stereotyping. We feel this

attitude is just permeating throughout the court."

The Toronto-based fathers' group, which claims a national membership

of about 1,000, was formed to lobby the government over its planned

changes to child custody laws.

The group will ask the judicial council, which normally investigates

complaints of misconduct against individual judges, to launch an

inquiry into the "judicial activism" of the top court, Mr. Guspie

said.

Jeannie Thomas, executive director of the justice council, said she

could not comment on how the organization, comprised of the country's

chief justices and associate chief justices, would handle such a

complaint.

Justice McClung and Justice L'Heureux-Dube touched off a firestorm two

weeks ago in a sparring match that began when Justice L'Heureux-Dube,

in a written ruling, gave Judge McClung a dressing down for promoting

"archaic and stereotypical" attitudes in a decision in which he noted

that a young sexual assault victim, among other things, did not

present herself "in a bonnet and crinolines." She was wearing shorts

and a T-shirt.

Judge McClung rocked the legal community by responding, in a letter

published in the National Post," that linked the "personal invective"

in Judge L'Heureux-Dube's decisions to the high rate of male suicide

in her home province of Quebec.

It later emerged that Judge L'Heureux-Dube's husband committed

suicide, as did Judge McClung's father. Judge McClung has since

apologized.

The incident has sparked numerous subplots that have divided

politicians, interest groups, and academics over the boundaries of

feminism, judicial power, and how far judges should go in speaking

out.

The latest complaint, which the parenting association filed yesterday,

accused Justice L'Heur-eux-Dube of bias against non-custodial parents

and children in several rulings that have come down on the side of the

mother.

"Justice L'Heureux-Dube has made it clear on too many occasions that

she is unable to separate her personal agenda from the duties of her

appointment," said the letter of complaint.

The judicial council has the power to recommend that judges be removed

from the bench, but normally goes no further than handing out rebukes.

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