PQ kept out of Quebec judges inquiry
Party's request to participate is rejected while Liberal Party, premier accepted
Premier Jean Charest recently called a probe following allegations by a former cabinet minister that provincial Liberal Party fundraisers had been calling the shots when it came to naming judges in the province.
The inquiry appears to be losing the support of key players: The star witness, former justice minister Marc Bellemare whose allegations prompted the probe, has said he won't testify and now the official Opposition has been told it can't participate.
Inquiry head Michel Bastarache refused a request from the Parti Québécois to have official status in the hearings. That means its lawyers cannot question witnesses the same way Conservative and Bloc Québécois party lawyers did at the Gomery commission into the federal sponsorship scandal.
Liberals, Charest to participate
At the same time, Bastarache announced Wednesday that not only would that official status be granted to the governing Liberal Party but also to the premier as an individual. He also granted official status to the Quebec Bar Association.
He said the decision was based on a sound reading of jurisprudence.
"I am convinced that the Quebec Liberal Party has a direct and important interest in the commission's work," Bastarache wrote in a statement.
'We will take all necessary steps so that the commission has all the information necessary to do its work,' — Premier Jean Charest
As for the official Opposition: "[I] consider it not desirable to grant either the status of participant or of intervenor to the official Opposition."
That decision angered the PQ, which said Bastarche failed to understand that the Opposition had a role to play in the hearings.
Now they're calling the whole commission into question.
"It's very hard today for us, as well as all Quebecers, to continue to have confidence in this commission and to not ask what all the millions of dollars to be spent will serve if it's only to allow Jean Charest to save face," said Veronique Hivon, the Opposition justice critic.
When he announced the probe, Charest's opponents called it a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from a bigger scandal involving corruption involving politicians and construction companies.
They howled again upon learning the commission's chief lawyer, Pierre Cimon, had been a donor to the Liberal Party. He eventually resigned.
Key witness refuses to testify
This week the key witness in the whole affair — former justice minister Marc Bellemare, who made the allegations about judges — announced he wouldn't testify.
He said he didn't believe the inquiry could be partial because Bastarache, a former Supreme Court justice, worked at Heenan Blaikie, a law firm that had deep financial ties with the Charest government.
Charest has agreed to waive the oath of secrecy for Bellemare, and when asked whether he could lift secrecy rules for the rest of his cabinet he hinted he might.
"We will take all necessary steps so that the commission has all the information necessary to do its work," Charest told a news conference Wednesday, standing next to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
The PQ suggests the inquiry is pointless if the main witness won't testify. Even before receiving the news her party had been rebuffed, Opposition Leader Pauline Marois called into question on Wednesday the pertinence of the entire exercise.
The premier called the inquiry after Bellemare, his former justice minister, said he was pressured to name certain judges at the request of Liberal fundraisers. He said he raised his concerns with Charest at the time but the premier ignored him.
The premier denied the claim and has filed a $700,000 defamation suit against Bellemare.
Immediately after Bellemare made the claim, Charest called the inquiry. That move confounded critics who have spent nearly a year demanding a probe into allegations of deep-rooted corruption related to construction contracts.