Director of Public Prosecutions

Little Known Facts 11 Comments

A reader who works in the federal justice system writes;

As part of the government’s accountability legislation, there is this little gem. It appears almost as an afterthought in the Bill and has not received much attention outside of the Federal Department of Justice. The creation of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions removes the Attorney General’s office from the Justice portfolio. This is to ensure no political influence is exerted to force a prosecution ahead or to affect the outcome in an ongoing prosecution.
The office of the D.P.P. is based upon an number of international models (including Great Britain) as well as models of some provincial Attorneys General in Canada. A number of prosecutions (notably under the Criminal Code) are the responsibility of the provinces to prosecute. In some provinces, a D.P.P. has been established to ensure the independence of the prosecuting agency from any and all political influences.
The Bill hints of good things to come in Federal prosecutions as it both promotes transparency in prosecutions and seeks to eradicate any political influence in the criminal justice arena.
In addition to the obvious sources of interference, presumably it will also preclude attempts by police to exert pressure to pursue questionable prosecutions, or demanding the prosecutions unit take certain (unreasonable) positions on bail or in sentencing.

Read about it here.

11 Replies to “Director of Public Prosecutions”

  1. It’s good in that it will allow the justice system to go after criminals in parliament.
    It’s bad in that it further insulates the justice system from public outrage over lenient sentences, easy bail, quick plea-bargains and the other stuff that drives conservatives friggen nuts.

  2. Warwick – aren’t those issues (sentencing, bail) matters for the courts rather than the legislature?
    What is interesting is to think about how and why we have come to require this Accountability Act and its mandate.
    I think it’s necessary because we, the electorate, have, for two reasons, lost control over our government.
    The first reason, which I will always refer to as a disastrous attack against democracy in Canada, is the insertion of bilingualism as a requirement for all key federal service – including the legislative, the judicial, the bureaucracy, public corporations, research funding and focus. Every decision about the taxpayers’ money, must be made within a bilingual control.
    Since, after one generation, the reality is that only about 20% of the population is, and will ever be, bilingual, that means that 80% of the population is barred from national decision-making. This has moved federal decision-making into the hands of a small, closed ‘mandarin class’ in Ottawa-Montreal. They, as a ‘club’, become isolate, they make their own rules, keep their own standards, maintain club loyalty. In a word, the become closed to the taxpayer and corrupt. That is an inevitable end to taking a road that sets up a closed governing class.
    The second reason is Canada’s unique economic and political isolation in the world. It is economically an appendage of the US; 85% of our exports go to this one country. No other country in the world operates within such an economic dependency – a safe, easy, non-competitive dependency. We need not lift a finger, we needn’t innovate, become competitive, to ensure our economic health. We’ve also relied on the US military – and have stopped funding our military; we’ve relied on the US international aid, and have become one of the lowest financial aid contributors in the world.
    That has resulted in another type of isolation. Not the corrupt isolation of our mandarin class, but also, the economic isolation which has moved us into only one ideological perspective. Socialism. As the Liberals constantly told us, to vote non-Liberal is ‘unCanadian’. And, the Liberal party is socialist. Its agenda is to ‘keep the people fed and quiet’ by heavy taxes which are then returned as ‘keep quiet’ bribes.
    Such a ‘modus operandus’ is equally corrupt as is the closed mandarin class we have created. Flinging money into ‘make-work’ projects isn’t good economics but it’s good politics.
    So, I think that we should be looking at the necessity for this massive accountability program. We shouldn’t consider it as due ‘only to the evil Liberals of Trudeau, Chretien, Mulroney’ – but as necessary due to the actual infrastructure of governance that we have set up in Canada.

  3. It is definitely a good thing. It gives the Federal Prosecutor independence while at the same time being accountable to elected officials, in this case the Attorney General. The law further safeguards the public interest by compelling the Attorney General to state publicly why he would ask the Prosecutor not to proceed with a particular case. Very well thought out.

  4. It also nicely wipes Shapiro out, because the position requires a judicial background.

  5. May 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada to the House of Commons
    The Auditor General is expected to table her Status Report in the House of Commons on 16 May 2006. The following is a brief description of the eight chapters contained in the Report.
    …
    Items Of Interest: Including this cryptic paragraph: “… significant implications…”
    Another significant matter. In carrying out our audit of the Canada Firearms Centre, we noted a matter with significant implications for Parliament’s control of public spending. Along with the Status Report we are providing a report that discusses this matter in detail.
    Chapter 4 � Canadian Firearms Program. The chapter looks at the management of the Program since 2002, when the Auditor General reported that an audit of the program’s implementation could not be completed. Financial information was unreliable and insufficient to allow for Parliament’s effective scrutiny or to explain the dramatic increase in the cost of the program. Since then, Parliament has expressed concern about the quality of information provided to it on the program’s costs and performance. This status report assesses the progress of the Canada Firearms Centre in addressing the 2002 audit’s single recommendation�that the gaps in financial reporting be rectified. We also looked at contract management and performance reporting.
    Chapter 5 � Management of Programs for First Nations. Although the federal government spends billions of dollars a year�just over $8 billion in 2004�05�on 360 programs targeted to Aboriginal people that address issues such as housing, health care, education, and economic development, the conditions in many First Nations communities and of many Aboriginal people remain significantly below the national average. This chapter reports on a follow-up audit that assessed the progress of five federal organizations in implementing 37 recommendations made between 2000 and 2003 on First Nations issues. In this audit, we also identified seven factors that appear to have been critical in the successful implementation of our recommendations. In our view, ensuring that these factors are fully considered when adjusting existing programs and implementing new ones will make a significant difference in the lives of Aboriginal people. +
    http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/other.nsf/html/06tdmay_e.html
    via primetimecrime.com

  6. Wish moi had said this! +
    No matter the outcome, its just energizing to finally see a government running this country with integrity & ethics. When you get down to it, the evidence exists that the Libs were involved in organized crime, robbed us Canadian taxpayers blind, ran this country as their personal fiefdom & prevented Canada from achieving its potential by implementing the failed social policies of France & the EU. Chretien was utterly enthralled by that doddering fool Chirac while Martin was solely in politics to fulfil his dad’s wet dream & enrich himself through CSL.
    The only hope this country has is a majority conservative government. Frankly, that is the only way PMSH can enact sufficiently robust legislation to root out the extensive corruption of the past 13 years.
    Come to think of it, Sheila Fraser’s department would have to be expanded to almost the size of the government itself to handle all the hundreds of scandals, money-laundering scams, entitlement benefits, taxpayer-paid ‘trips with kept boyfriend’ to the luxury hotels of the Caribbean or Europe, and on and on. AAAAARGGGGH!
    Posted by: Alienated at April 13, 2006 10:49 AM +
    http://www.stevejanke.com/archives/170624.php#comments

  8. I sure wish, that they would stop calling it the ‘justice department’, and start calling it what it really is- The Law Department! (And the actual role of this department, is to put more LAWYERS to work!)

  10. I’m a little confused — what is the purpose of the Ministry of Justice, *other* than the Attorney General’s office? That’s what I’ve always known it for…
    (… and stuff like changing the definition of marriage…)

  11. Wow. Finally. An independant Public Prosecutor’s office in Canada. And not a moment too soon – this office could be kept busy into the next decade sorting out all of the previous Lieberal scandals and corruption alone. 🙂

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