A Brian Mulroney spokesman explains why the ongoing ethics committee proceedings represent a travesty of justice

When public figures offended powerful interests under Henry VIII, they would be summoned to appear in a large committee room. With no charge or indictment, no right to counsel, no right to cross-examine accusers and no right to appeal, they would be judged in secret by a panel of political opponents. Conviction was guaranteed.

The Canadian parliamentary Star Chamber is a milder, more modern tribunal: It operates in the open, it cannot sentence its victims to death and its judgments can be appealed. Still, the behaviour of the Commons ethics committee presents decidedly frightening parallels to the Tudor era: no right to counsel, no right to see evidence before it is made public, no right to examine witnesses and the judge and jury are one’s political enemies.

Our parliamentary kangaroo court also rejects any limitation — imposed by the Canadian Charter of Rights or otherwise — to its ability to compel witnesses or documents, from love letters to prison records to bank statements.

In defence of his arbitrary tribunal, ethics committee chair Paul Szabo and his Liberal colleagues recite endlessly: “We are not a court.” Indeed, not. No court in this country would be permitted to trespass on the rights of its citizens so flagrantly. No judge with such a political investment in a guilty verdict would be permitted to preside. No jury members would be drawn from such a partisan group as these MPs. And no judgment made by such an impossibly prejudiced forum would stand a chance on appeal before a legitimate court.

And yet, on the matter of Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber, this committee intends to reach such a judgment and publish its conclusions in the form of a committee report without ever having observed the most basic rules of fairness, natural justice or the Charter.

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