Judicial Conduct Complaint to BC Chief Justice
No response received from the "transparent and accountable" Judiciary, just a lawyer purporting that he represents the Judiciary but in what capacity?
The Provincial Court Judges are appointed by the Provinces not by the Federal Government and are not subject to the Canadian Judicial Council but conduct complaints are dealt with by the Chief Justice of the Provincial Court. In my case the BC Court of Appeal had dismissed my evidence and argument regarding a failure in the rule of law throughout the legal system as a “conspiracy theory. This does not reflect reality.” Res Judicata means that a cause of action may not be relitigated once it has been judged on the merits.
But I also had a ruling from the Canadian Judicial Council dismissing a complaint regarding a judge ignoring the transcript and called upon the Plaintiff to protect her lawyer committing fraud. A claim that judges can ignore all the evidence that I could possibly provide. A claim of absolute power, a failure in the rule of law, and a clear display of bias and unfairness, a constitutional failure.
Link to my initial protest in the Court
“Compelling an accused to stand trial would violate those fundamental principles of justice which underlie the community’s sense of fair play and decency and to prevent abuse of a court’s process through oppressive or vexatious proceedings.”
R v O’Conner SCC 1995
Faxed August 25th, 2023
The Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia
I wish to make a complaint regarding the conduct of Justice Bohm in the Nakusp Provincial Court on July 13, 2023 and following Senator Cotter's advice to resolve problems in the Judiciary by writing a quick note to the Chief Justice to clear things up.Justice is purporting that he could legitimately judge me when the AG/MOJ is not responding to the enforcement procedure of the Charter. Justice is purporting that he could legitimately judge the constitutionality of the Judges Act which the AG's office “declined to participate”.
I believe that the public would consider this a conflict of interest.Justice knowing that I cannot access justice either physically, by fax or procedurally and certainly not constitutionally with a lawyer, before a fair and impartial court exercising fundamental justice is threatening me with Jail for the failings of the Judiciary. The matter has been set down for trial on September 7, 2023 in Nakusp.
I don’t think that the public will consider this a fair and impartial trial complying with fundamental justice and will certainly bring about the disrepute of the legal system and a continuing lack of trust in our purportedly democratic institutions. I know you understand the problem facing the public trust in the legitimacy of this institution.
I have presented evidence of law societies protecting lawyers committing fraud and failing to comply with court orders to provide monthly trust account statements and judges protecting lawyers committing fraud on court orders and a judge protecting the lawyer by asking the plaintiff what she heard and preferring that to my evidence, the transcript, which he was holding in his hand.
The Canadian Judicial Council has refused to investigate and refused to discipline and when I requested a review of that decision claimed I was abusing the process instead of initiating their procedures under 6.1 of their rules and retaining outside counsel to provide an opinion. They are no longer responding to me at all. I requested in the BC Supreme Court a writ of mandamus on the Minister of Justice to protect the public and ensure that the administration was in compliance with the law but was told my request was “irrelevant” and when I appealed the matter to the BC Court of Appeal for a right to appeal they dismissed me claiming my experience, “does not reflect reality”. The matter has been presented before Parliament and I intend to serve the enforcement procedure of the Charter on every single MP in the coming days unless the Judiciary can internally regulate itself as it claims to be capable of doing.
I suggest that this is an abuse of process of the highest order, a Constitutional Crisis.
I understand that a judge is not liable for conduct undertaken within his jurisdiction but is absolutely liable for conduct undertaken outside of his jurisdiction.
I remain committed to assisting in the just resolution of this matter in accordance with the law. The proper resolution of a charter breach is a restoration of the breach. Claiming that a Judge could judge whilst the AG/MOJ is in breach of the enforcement procedure Charter is a constitutional breach of the requirement to provide fair and impartial trials and fundamental justice. I have received nothing but denial that there is a problem and the public must accept “fraud and corruption is always the exception” to the rule of law.
Old Lawyer joke
Q. How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?
A. Their lips are moving…
Incarcerated September 7th 2023 to November 25th, 2023
No response ever received.
Faxed December 4th, 2023
The Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia
Chief Justice Michelle GillespieI wish to make a complaint regarding the conduct of Justice Sicotte of the Provincial Court of B.C.
Firstly, Justice purported that he had the authority to set aside the Constitution, to remove the protections of the Charter, at will; based on the simple argument that it is “a very narrow proceeding.”
Secondly, that Justice asserted no conflict of interests to both the recusal argument and the judiciary's conflict of interest in the judging of the Constitutionality of the Judges Act, when it is plain on the basis that, no-one can be a judge in their own cause.Thirdly, that Justice sentenced me to prison knowing that given the precedent provided for by the BCCA that all my arguments and evidence, including an assertion of discretion over the acceptance of the official court record and fraud by lawyers, could be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, leaving me and all British Columbian's with zero rights in the process as Judges contain unlimited discretion over all evidence and acceptance or rejection of all arguments and no requirement to provide meaningful reasons that withstand any type of independent scrutiny.
Judge purports that he is not bound by the Charter.
CNSL T. WILLIAMS: Your Honour, I don't understand that just for the simple fact that this application -- or this hearing has nothing to do with any of the constitutional arguments. It's very narrow. P 7 line 30
Justice Sicotte “in terms of this proceeding, I agree with Ms. Williams, this is a very narrow proceeding under the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act today in terms of what consequences, if any, should flow from your failure to comply with the order...” p 8 line 23
even though the application was for a term of incarceration:
“if the debtor is before the court and the court finds that the debtor is capable of complying with the order, order the debtor to be imprisoned...” p3 l40My concern is obviously if a judge can step outside of constitutional arguments merely by agreeing with the prosecution that the application is “very narrow” then what charter protections exist at all.
Judge declines recusal requests which are clearly valid and acknowledged.
I also made requests for recusal which are valid but denied. I did not bring them up again on September 7th, 2023 as the judge had previously ruled against, but my perception of bias remains
starting at p 6 line 17
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: Sure, thank you, Justice. Just with no animosity whatsoever, I just wanted to bring up the idea of recusal. There's two matters that I can think of that might come into that. In our previous hearings, I've brought up issues that are going to come up here again, the issue of the writ of mandamus or the problem with the Minister of Justice not complying with the Charter, and the Attorney General, and which you ignored in a previous trial, which is conduct that I'm alleging that the FMEP is also in breach of. I've been communicating with FMEP through Tina, through their case worker, through Chris Beresford and through the Provincial Attorney General David Eby and they are all aware of the facts in this matter. However, no argument has been presented to dispute the facts that I present whatsoever. The second matter in regard to the recusal is FMEP in the previous, my previous experience with FMEP when confronted with fraud by lawyers, their decision was to delay collection of child support for five years, which was the same decision that you came to when you heard my matter about the income tax issue. So I just wanted to bring those two issues up as I feel like that's a pre-judgment of the matter. I am totally open to your consideration on that.
THE COURT: If you could just clarify your last argument. You're saying that was the same conclusion I came to when FMEP --
THE COURT: -- delayed child support for five years. I don't follow that.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: Right. Sorry, when I presented the problem when I was here in the hearing back in July 16th of 2021, for failing to comply with the income tax statement…
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: I made the same sort of arguments about failures in the rule of law at that time and your decision was to delay collection activities for five years, rather than addressing --
THE COURT: Oh, I see.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: -- the actual problem that I was addressing. Those are the two matters that I just want to bring up.
THE COURT: All right. Well, let me address that very briefly. Are you then suggesting that I recuse myself because of a perception of bias from yourself with respect to my ability to hear this? Is that where you're going with --
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: …I think that's a fair comment.
And concluded on p8 line 5
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Holsworth, I'm not going to grant your application that I recuse myself. I frankly didn't follow it particularly clearly.
I believe that a reasonable person would perceive a conflict of interest justifying recusal. The fact that a mistrial was ordered on the case discussed regarding “criminal charges...income tax statement” is certainly another consideration which affects a perception of fairness. Unfortunately when incarceration occurs immediately which is what happened on September 7th 2023 there is NO opportunity for a mistrial application or an Appeal at all and the imprisonment occurs whether lawful or not.
Abusive Process
The reality still exists that if, as the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) claims that Federal Judges have a discretion, rather than duty, in their acceptance of the transcript then the appeal itself is arbitrary, but that aside the precedent that BCCA Justice Newbury established that all my submissions and evidence are a “conspiracy theory. That does not reflect reality” effectively removes all my constitutional rights, by simply dismissing them with opinion, unsupported by any facts and ignoring all documentary evidence including letters from the CJC and the transcript, results in Canadians having zero rights in the British Columbia legal system as everything presented up to and including transcript evidence is subject to being ignored at the whim of any judge hearing the matter. If everything can be dismissed as being irrelevant, and argument can be dismissed with, “I frankly didn't follow it particularly clearly”, even after saying “Oh. I see”, which I certainly took as an understanding that my argument had been acknowledged, understood and not requiring any further explanation or clarification.
The quotes from the transcript refer to the hearing on July 13, 2022 in Nakusp.
The same judge subsequently ordered my incarceration on September 7, 2023
The Provincial Court Judge who previously had claimed not to be a high enough court to resolve issues of a failure of the legal system to be in compliance with the law or fundamental justice because “it's a very large argument and it may be very serious but it's not one I can address in Provincial Court” ( July 10th 2021, Nakusp ) would also purport to have authority to judge the constitutionality of the Judges Act without seeing a conflict of interest in that regard is difficult to comprehend.
Are Judges immune from conflicts of interest, what could be more of a conflict than to judge the constitutionality of their governing Act of Parliament?
The outcome of the case turned upon the resolution of the question whether the court conducting a preliminary inquiry was a "court of competent jurisdiction" so as to empower a provincial court judge to hear and determine Charter questions. This Court was unanimously of the view that a provincial court judge sitting on a preliminary hearing was not a court of competent jurisdiction capable of granting a remedy under s. 24(1).
R v Askov quoting Mills v The Queen
Other than writing the actual Act of Parliament, of course. ( which they did )
It is also problematic that I communicated a failure of the Court Registries to acknowledge my faxes to attempt to file documents to access justice to dispute the root cause of the hearing occurring and no comment or concern was made by two judges. That I have a court order on another Court Registry to provide court audio that remains unfulfilled almost a year later just compounds the access to justice issue in the British Columbia legal system.
Of course I feel I was unfairly and arbitrarily imprisoned, with bias and potentially malice.
Thank you for your acceptance of this complaint regarding judicial conduct by Justice Sicotte. I look forward to receiving your response. I note that I have no received a response to my complaint regarding the conduct of Justice Bohm faxed to your office on August 25, 2023
First I tried fax, then submitting complaint online on Feb 21st and received confirmation by email. On Feb 23rd 2024 a lawyer mailed letters dismissing both complaints, “In summary, we are unable to assist you on the basis of your correspondence” and claimed to have sent the communications by email to Fundamental Justice and spelt correctly but no receipt. I cant access fundamental justice in the court and they cant access it by email. 1st world problems…
I responded,
Date 18th March 2024
Chief Justice of the Provincial CourtThank you for your letters which you date as September 7th regarding Chief Justice Bohm and Dec 27th 2023 and include [DATE ORGINALLY SENT] in your printed letters which according to the postmark were mailed Feb 23rd 2024 subsequent to my online complaint submission on the 21st. The email fundamentaljustice@gmail.com which you correctly spell in your correspondence has no record of having received your communication. If you could send a record of your email correspondence that would help me to isolate the problem in receiving your communications for the future.
The problem with judging judicial conduct including failures to follow procedures, evidentiary problems and failures to apply the law correctly is that at some point the right to appeal is exhausted. If judges fail in their duties at that last appeal what then? Is there a separate judicial complaint process for judges at the final stage of appeal? Since an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is by definition arbitrary that court is irrelevant for this process. Furthermore I dont believe that your standard for judging of the judicial conduct is based on constitutional or the legislative framework, perhaps we should start there, starting with “good behaviour”.
I appreciate hearing your opinion dismissing my complaint although not sure why your opinion should have priority over mine, simply because it is yours.
You reference the Provincial Court Act providing the Chief Justice the authority to examine complaints about the conduct of judges or justices of the court which may raise an issue as to their fitness for judicial office.
I assume you are referencing,
“Investigations
22.1...all complaints respecting a judge or justice must be directed in writing to the chief judge, who, after examining the complaint, must report in writing to the complainant and to the judge or justice.
The chief judge must conduct an investigation respecting the fitness of a judge or justice to perform the judge's or justice's duties if the chief judge, whether or not a complaint has been received under subsection (1), considers that an investigation is advisable, or
the chief judge is directed by the Attorney General to conduct an investigation.”
Are you the chief judge of the Provincial Court? I assume not as you sign your name “T. Fik, Legal Counsel”, so am curious as to where your statutory authority lies to conduct this investigation.
I note that you ignore completely the fact that Justice Sicotte ignored the fact that I had attempted to access the Registry and provided that evidence to the court but he was completely uninterested in examining that critical issue but you instead refer me to CSO as if that solves the problem. It is the conduct of the judge ignoring the evidence I provided which established a failure of the court registry to accept filings, that I am complaining about. If Canadians cannot access the court it is not our problem and we should not be punished for that failure.
I find your examination to be biased, flawed and incomplete on that basis alone. As you are the legal counsel for the court your opinion is by definition biased, but not determinate.
There is and was a section 7 liberty issue involved in the resolution of this matter and that requires a hearing in accordance with fundamental justice. That was not provided. A right to appeal was not available.
Question Authority…The critical questions are; where does your authority derive its legitimacy from - an Act of Parliament for peace, order and good government is the standard.
April 18, 2024
T. Fik
Office of the Chief Judge BC Provincial CourtI write in response to your letter of March 28th, 2024
I appreciate your forwarding the court pages from the Provincial Court of BC website, which of course I have already reviewed but they do not answer the questions that I present to the Chief Judge in my previous communications.
I note that you forwarded the letter to Associate Chief Judge S. Wishart. I am not sure the purpose of this as he was the subject of the complaint from me. Is it your assertion that the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court assigned the Associate Chief Judge S. Wishart to consider this complaint. If so, Please forward proof of that assignment.
The website or the statute does not indicate that the Chief Judge could assign that role to you and obviously the subject of a complaint would not be an impartial judge.
“The Chief Judge, or an Associate Chief Judge designated by the Chief Judge, considers every complaint carefully.” but does say, “The Court’s core values are fairness, integrity, excellence and independence, and a high standard of conduct is essential to maintain those values.”
Are you suggesting that there are different standards of judging depending on the court? If the lower court determines that he can step outside the charter and that is ok conduct for a judge then what happens when the next judge does the same because it is ok conduct for a judge.
I would like to hear from the Chief Justice on this matter, that she understands that her duty could extend to approving that judges under her supervision could decide to step outside of the constraints of the Charter, on the basis, that there is a process of Appeal to a Higher Court available.
That is simply not true. The Federal Court Judges through the Canadian Judicial Council assert that they are not bound to the contents of the transcript, claiming a discretion on their acceptance of the transcript, in the face even of fraud on a court by a lawyer, and not an allegation of fraud on the transcript.
Your defenses are not justified under the law and you personally have no authority to speak to this matter under the statute. I feel like you are acting as a lawyer in defense of judicial misconduct. Are you representing one, or all of the judges, as a client? That appears to me to be the only justification that you could have to speak on this matter. Or is it merely as an obstruction of justice?
“An intentional failure to follow the law, even with a benign motive, constitutes bad faith and consequently judicial misconduct.”
In re LaBelle,591 N.E.2d 1156 (N.Y. 1992)
We shall see if there is a response.
There was no response as of June 6th 2024 so I followed up,
I have an unresolved complaint regarding Justice Sicotte that does not have a decision rendered by the Chief Justice or the Assistant Chief Justice. I informed Justice Sicotte on May 16, 2024 of the fact that there is an outstanding complaint and suggested that along with the other reasons previously made that he should recuse, that this also provides him with a reason that a reasonably well informed person would consider that he would have bias against me.
A resolution of a complaint of a provincial court judge requires that the decision must comply with the procedure set out in the Provincial Court Act. Failing to do so does not complete the statutory requirements set out by the Legislative Assembly and offends the people and the law.
I had followed the debate on the Judges Act through Parliament and attempted to communicate with the various Committees including the PM and with the relevant authorities like the POEC regarding MOJ and PM.
No response has ever been received.
Supreme Court of Canada refuses to respond to Charter Right to Habeas Corpus
9. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.
10. Everyone has the right on arrest or detention
to be informed promptly of the reasons therefor;
to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right; and
to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful.
Thanks for reading. I submitted a brief to the Parliamentary Committee debating Miscarriages of Justice
This is my suggestion for reform of the Judicial Conduct Process
“The basic principle of the primacy of the law recognized by the Constitution is, in fact, intended to prevent the State from seeing itself as the absolute master of it’s citizens destiny”
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. I