Staffing
Staffing is inseparable from lack of access to justice in French. The appointment of bilingual judges, the designation of positions and filling them with bilingual employees, and language rights education in French are systemic obstacles that can be overcome.
Bilingual judges
“While access to justice in English and French is also dependent on the bilingual capacity of police departments, legal aid services and court officers, it cannot be achieved if the judiciary does not have sufficient bilingual capacity to ensure equal access to justice in English and French for all parties who come before it. This is the sine qua non condition of the courts’ respect for the public’s language rights.”
– Access to Justice in Both Official Languages: Improving the Bilingual Capacity of the Superior Court Judiciary30
In 2013, thanks to the leadership of his federal colleague, Commissioner of Official Languages Graham Fraser, the Commissioner and his New Brunswick counterpart produced a report entitled Access to Justice in Both Official Languages: Improving the Bilingual Capacity of the Superior Court Judiciary.31 In the report, the commissioners made 10 recommendations to the federal and provincial governments. While the appointment of superior court judges is a federal responsibility, the administration of justice is a provincial matter.
The following year, in his 2013-2014 annual report, the Commissioner recommended that the language proficiency of bilingual candidates for the judiciary be objectively and formally evaluated.
This point was picked up in 2014 by the authors of the Rouleau-LeVay report,32 one of whose 17 recommendations deals with judges’ language skills. The report notes that the language skills of a judge or justice of the peace presiding over a bilingual or French proceeding should be equivalent to the skills of a judge or justice of the peace presiding over an English proceeding.
In February 2017, the Ministry of the Attorney General advertised 20 judiciary vacancies across the province, but only two of them — one in Ottawa and one in North Bay — required bilingualism. It is taking a while for the message to get through, especially since there seems to be a disconnect between the needs stated by the Chief Justice and the Ministry office responsible for judicial appointments.
Staff in courts of justice
The French Language Services Bench and Bar Advisory Committee also recommended that court staff positions be designated to ensure integrated delivery of French-language services.
In the same vein, the Committee further recommended that the positions of French-language services coordinators at the provincial and regional levels, justices of the peace in the Ontario Court of Justice, and judges at every level of the justice system be designated.
Language rights education
The Steering Committee recommended that initiatives be taken to educate court staff about the language rights of Francophones. The Commissioner supported the proposal to develop ongoing training courses for deputy judges presented by educators such as the National Judicial Institute. However, while the Institute offers training courses for judges in both official languages, it has no courses on French language rights. Accordingly, the Committee suggested that the Institute add a language rights component to its courses for new judges.
30. August 2013 report by the Language Commissioners of Canada, Ontario and New Brunswick, p. 5. For more details, see http://www.officiallanguages.gc.ca/sites/default/files/access-justice-bilingual-capacity.pdf (page consulted in March 2017).
31. Ibid.
32. Supra note 19.