Abitibi judge Denise Descôteaux gets into trouble again. She was accused for the third time of her misconduct in court by the Conseil de la magistrature du Québec.
In a recent decision, a Judicial Council investigative committee alleges that he lost his temper towards a witness, to the point of forcing him to reveal that he was a police informant who may have lost his life Attention was placed in the way.
“The judge [Descôteaux] demonstrated an inability to protect whistleblower privilege [informateur] the police because of gross ignorance of the relevant principles,” emphasized the committee in its resolution presented in mid-November.
The Committee recalls that whistleblowers enjoy “absolute” identity protection when they appear in court, even if the case is not directly related to their work.
In that case, Judge Descôteaux, who sits in the Quebec court in Val-d’Or, presided over a 2019 juvenile division case to urgently rule on whether the woman’s visitation rights to her child should be revoked for drug abuse .
crack house
An ex-husband of the woman, who is not the child’s father, who was called to testify at the trial, reveals he saw her at a crack house. Judge Descôteaux asks him how he knew it was a crack house and asks him if he’s a cop. The man replies that he is not a police officer.
The judge presses him, gets impatient and asks him why he didn’t call the police. He claims that the nature of his functions is protected and states that he is not a police officer but works for the police. But the judge doesn’t want to hear anything and continues to ask urgent questions.
The Conseil de la magistrature’s investigative committee believes that Judge Descôteaux has lost control of herself. She shows an “inability to suppress her frustration,” says the decision, with a view to the man’s statement, which she judges more as “a criminal who wants to harm the mother”.
“The committee is aware that a judge is not a sphinx. […] There may be disapproving reactions. On the other hand, this state should never last to the point where the judge loses control of himself.
The judge will impose a sanction to be determined at a later date.
Two more files
Last May, she was reprimanded on two other counts by the Conseil de la Magistrature, following complaints about cases involving the Direction de la Protection de la Jeunesse. In court he was criticized for a lack of courtesy and composure. We also noted his unnecessarily aggressive tone and tendency to lose control of his emotions.
Another charge against her, which has not yet been heard, was also filed by the DPCP (Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions).
In 2016, Judge Descôteaux stood out in other ways. Shortly after her appointment as a judge, she had to be repatriated from a Cree village in James Bay because she was unable to conduct a trial in English, despite claiming to be bilingual when serving as a judge, what La Presse reported.
In Abitibi-Témiscamingue, judges are required to be fluent in English since their territory includes northern Quebec, where the Aborigines speak little French.
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