Legal experts say Quebec 'secret trial' violates fundamental principles of justice
CBC
Members of Quebec's legal community say a trial that took place in complete secrecy, with no paper trail, has violated the fundamental principles of justice on which the court system is based.
The trial, whose existence was first reported by the French-language online newspaper La Presse on Friday, is referred to only as "Dossier X."
The case was conducted covertly with the approval of the Crown prosecutors involved, the presiding judge and defence counsel.
Where and when the trial took place, along with the names of the defendant and the presiding judge, have been deliberately excluded from the public record.
No witnesses were called to the stand: they were interviewed outside the courtroom, and a transcript of their testimony was presented in court.
The case had no case number and was never filed in the province's judicial archives. On paper, it never happened.
The trial only came to light because the defendant chose to appeal the verdict, flagging the case to Quebec's Court of Appeal, which in turn rendered its decision public.
Elfriede-Andrée Duclervil, a legal aid lawyer in Montreal who has worked on several high-profile cases, said it was "unthinkable" that any lawyer would agree to participate in a trial this way.
"Our justice system is based on standards of openness and transparency in court proceedings, and that case went completely against that. Totally against that," she said.
Longtime criminal lawyer Jeffrey Boro said he, too, was "astonished" that the rules of court, "established over centuries, can be disregarded in minutes."
"Things like this should never, ever happen," Boro said.
The Appeal Court decision, released on Wednesday, is heavily redacted but makes it possible to glean some of the facts of the case.
The secrecy was allegedly to protect the identity of the defendant, who had worked as an informant with an unnamed local police service.
It appears police met with the informant several times, including in hotel rooms and in the back of vans.