No longer is Justice Suzanne Côté among the three-judge panel identified as those assigned to decide whether the Quebec Tobacco-related Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act will be reviewed by that court, as I reported last weekend. The Initials "Côt" have been replaced with "Br".
As far as I can tell, no further explanation has been given about why Court earlier indicated that Justice Côté had been assigned to the case, despite her relationship with parties on one side. Nor do we know why it took 2 weeks to issue a correction.
Let us hope it was a typo. If so, I am certainly in no position to thorw stnoes.
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**The industry challenge to the law and their claim that it deprives them of a fair trial in ways that is inconsistent with the Quebec Charter has already been rejected by two Quebec courts.
Two years ago, Justice Mongeon of the Quebec Superior Court ruled that the act was "clear and unambiguous" and was consistent with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. His ruling and his reasons were upheld by the Court of Appeal last September.
If Justice were played like hockey, there would be stats to point out how rare it is for a team to lose the first two rounds, but come out an eventual winner.
