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And the judges get set to pound the gavel and yell "contempt". Some folks don’t know when they have it good.
Stephen Harper's Conservative government is expected to tell the country's 1,100 federally appointed judges next week that they will not receive a promised pay raise of almost 11% because it is too rich when compared to the Canadian average.
An “independent commission”, whose composition is not specified in the news story, recommended a 19% increase over four years for the judges. The pay hike was to be heavily front-loaded: the commission recommended an initial-year rise of 10.8% with cost-of-living increases in the subsequent three years.
The increase has to pass through Parliament. The former Liberal government prepared a bill authorising the raise, but it died with the election call. The Conservatives opposed the increase while in opposition because the proposed 19% raise is far above both the inflation rate and average pay increases of Canadian workers. Now that the Tories form the government, they are expected to scale back the judges’ pay boost.
The recommendations would immediately increase judges' salaries to $240,000 from $219,400. Chief and associate chief justices would earn $263,000. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, would earn $308,400 and the other eight Supreme Court judges would each receive $285,600.
Those sound like hefty pay cheques to me. Are those judges really sure they couldn’t make ends meet with a little less? Predictably, the judges retort that it’s not about the money per se; it’s the principle of the thing.
The idea behind the commission is to eliminate political wrangling between judges and politicians over pay so there is no appearance the bench is beholden to the government.
. . .
Justice Robert Blair, president of the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association, said he has written [Justice Minister Vic] Toews pleading the judges' case."Judicial independence is at stake here," said Judge Blair, an Ontario Court of Appeal judge.
"Judicial remuneration is supposed to be subject to this process that is designed to de-politicize the fixing of judicial salaries so they don't become a political football."
Judicial independence is threatened because judges’ salaries are not raised by the full $20,600? If they get only, say, $10,000, they could appear to be “beholden to the government”? Excuse me, but I think Justice Blair is selling his confrères short. Is he really saying that the government can intimidate judges for only a few grand apiece? That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the independence and integrity of our judiciary no matter what their salaries are.
Not only that, I, for one, fail to see why judges must be exempted from the pay bargaining processes, implicit or explicit, that the rest of us peons are subject to. Could it be that judges really do think they have “god-like” powers? Heaven forfend.
The former Liberal Justice Minister, now sitting on the opposition benches, defends his decision to pay the 19% recommendation.
Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler countered that the raise reflects increases given to senior federal public servants.
So, senior federal civil servants received increases far above other Canadian workers. Maybe the solution is to take some of that back. Then the reduced raise for judges will fall nicely into line with that of the civil service.
via Bourque.
