The Quebec legal community, aghast and dismayed over a criminal trial that took place in complete secrecy, with no paper trail, is calling for a probe and demanding accountability to deter the “judicial charade” from taking place again.
The trial, which only came to light after the defendant chose to appeal the verdict before the Quebec Court of Appeal, did not have a case number and was never filed in the province’s judicial archives. As disturbingly, the names of the defence lawyer, the Crown prosecutor and the judge were excluded from the public record as were the offence, date and location of where the trial took place. Moreover, witnesses were interviewed out of court, and the parties asked the judge to decide the case based on transcripts.