Cynthia McKinney's petition "Give a Fair Court Hearing to Denis Rancourt " surpasses 1000 signatures

Cynthia McKinney's change.org petition "Give a Fair Court Hearing to Denis Rancourt" has surpassed 1000 signatures. It is addressed to chief justices in Ottawa, Ontario, and Canada.

Ottawa Citizen articles about the petition are HERE and HERE.

Click image for link to change.org petition

Supreme Court of Canada now has all documents in hand to fix Rancourt's unresolved judicial bias complaint

 

AN EARLIER POST describes Denis Rancourt's recent filing of an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, to fix a complaint of judicial bias.

The application gave rise to responses from the respondent Joanne St. Lewis and from the responding party University of Ottawa. Rancourt filed his replies to these responses today (February 3, 2014). The file is now nominally complete for a determination by a panel of three supreme court judges.

The St. Lewis response is posted HERE, or PDF.
The University of Ottawa response is posted HERE, or PDF.
Rancourt's replies are posted HERE, or PDF.

Rancourt essentially argues that if the Supreme Court of Canada refuses to grant an appeal, then Canada will have violated its international obligations to provide an impartial court in civil matters, pursuant to two international agreements:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Article 14(1)
1. All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law. ...

Rancourt also argues that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms itself requires that the appeal on the basis of the judicial bias complaint must be heard, because, he argues, access to an impartial court is a Charter right of every individual by virtue of s. 15(1):

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Rancourt points out that the French text of the Charter (s. 15(1)) is unambiguous on the guarantee of access to an impartial court:

La loi ne fait acception de personne et s’applique également à tous, et tous ont droit à la même protection et au même bénéfice de la loi, indépendamment de toute discrimination, notamment des discriminations fondées sur la race, l’origine nationale ou ethnique, la couleur, la religion, le sexe, l’âge ou les déficiences mentales ou physiques.

Court documents in the overall action and its appeals are HERE.

Rancourt files Motion to a Judge, Supreme Court of Canada, to set aside Registrar's order

On February 13, 2013, Denis Rancourt filed THIS "Motion to a Judge" to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The motion asks a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada to set aside an order of the Registrar of the Court.

On January 25, 2013, the Supreme Court Registrar, Roger Bilodeau, Q.C., wrote THIS decision to not even assign a court file number to Rancourt's January 7, 2013 application for leave to appeal to the Court.

Rancourt argues that the Registrar's decision/order was contrary to both the Supreme Court Act, and the Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Rancourt argues that the Registrar cannot simply "not accept" an application for leave to appeal on the basis of the Registrar's speculation about the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, which is a substantive matter argued in the application itself.

The opposing parties, Joanne St. Lewis (represented by Richard Dearden) and the University of Ottawa (represented by Peter Doody), had written to the Registrar to argue that the Court did not have the jurisdiction to hear Rancourt's application, and to ask the Registrar to "not accept" the application.

The application was about a litigant's Charter and natural justice rights to an impartial judicial process. Specifically, the right to have a complaint of actual or apparent judicial bias heard by the court where the complaint is made. The application seeks to appeal a decision by Justice Peter Annis to refuse leave to appeal decisions of Justice Robert Beaudoin on the grounds of apparent bias.

Links to all court documents in the on-going St. Lewis v. Rancourt legal case are HERE.

Rancourt files application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada

In the on-going case of St. Lewis v. Rancourt, Rancourt has done everything possible to have his complaint of reasonable apprehension of bias of Justice Robert Beaudoin heard on its merits, either at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice or at the Ontario Divisional Court.

These efforts were put to a close by the November 29, 2013 decision of Justice Peter Annis to not grant leave to appeal to the Divisional Court.

Since Rancourt's bias complaint was never heard on its merits, and since impartiality of the judiciary is a foundation of the common law, Rancourt believes his Charter rights to be heard and to equality before and under the law were violated.

Since the possibility of appeal was finally barred using rules of court which allow such judicial discretion, Rancourt concludes that the said rules of court are unconstitutional, and he therefore seeks leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

If the Supreme Court of Canada does not grant leave to appeal then it will mean that, in Ontario, litigants can make complaints of bias against judges and the complaints can continue to be finally barred by the court in which the complaints are made, and never heard on their merits. And there is no recourse.

Does that sound like something that should occur in a democratic society?

Rancourt's full application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was served and filed today, and is posted: HERE.

Rancourt wrongful dismissal hearings::: Full disclosure is required

(see video commentary below)

In the matter of the on-going binding arbitration tribunal into the wrongful dismissal case of physics professor Denis Rancourt, the University of Ottawa has made a legal undertaking to disclose everything that is "arguably relevant" to all the issues before the arbitrator.

The union (APUO) has established in the tribunal that the issues include that the firing was made in bad faith, under a false pretext, with the goal of silencing and removing Rancourt.

In the words of renowned academic workplace researcher Professor Kenneth Westhues, the Rancourt firing was an "administrative mobbing."

The University provided its disclosures six months after the May 2, 2011, start of the hearings.

These University disclosures were reported by the union to the tribunal on November 1, 2011, as being "superficial" and "incomplete", in what can only be characterized as an understatement.

Hired-lawyer Lynn Harnden for the University on November 1, 2011, undertook to "verify" the completeness of the University's disclosures, which contain virtually no documents about any of the particulars of bad faith which the union has submitted.

The latter union-advanced particulars include:

• The University's 2006-2008 covert information-gathering campaign against Rancourt and other University employees and students
  

• The University's 2007 unjustified barring of Rancourt from all first-year-level courses

• The University's 2008 unjustified barring of Rancourt from all teaching

• The University's November-2008 lock-out of Rancourt and all his graduate students from their laboratory and the removal of essential laboratory materials

• The University's December-2008 banning of Rancourt from campus except with police escort, including his campus radio show and his cinema discussion series
  

• The University's 2009 refusals to consider duly submitted documents in its decision to fire Rancourt

• The University's 2011 funding of a private lawsuit against Rancourt, now used as evidence for "post-dismissal conduct to support the decision to dismiss"
  

Such apparent disregard of an undertaking to disclose, if not corrected, is an egregious breach of natural justice. For the arbitration to be allowed to proceed under these conditions, if not substantively corrected, would be a fatal flaw in the tribunal process.

Here is professor Rancourt's reaction in a video interview made on November 1, 2011:

Message to U of O:
Full disclosure is required

All posts about the wrongful dismissal hearings: HERE.

See hearings schedule and reports: HERE.

Chronology of wrongful-dismissal background events: HERE.

.

Natural justice as foreign concept::: U of O's dismissal of Denis Rancourt (Video)

"The employer will be relying upon post-dismissal conduct and events... first of all to support the decision to dismiss..."
-- Lynn Harnden, hired lawyer for U of O

"The state will be relying upon post-incarceration conduct of the prisoner... first of all to support the sentence of guilty..."
-- Crown prosecutor on appeal, Fascist dystopia

You decide.

This is a video extract from the first day (May 2, 2011) of binding arbitration hearings in the academic freedom case of tenured physics professor Denis Rancourt at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

The hearing dates are scheduled well into 2012.

Links to key relevant background are HERE.

Read THIS chronology!
.