BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: Downey's new approach 'more democratic',' published March 14.
At first glance, Doug Lewis’s suggestion that the appointment of judges by Doug Downey, an elected official, would be “more democratic” sounds appealing. But on second thought, I really don’t like the idea.
How well have “democratic institutions” served Blacks, Muslims, Hindus, homosexual men or women, Jews, First Nations folk, etc.?
Doug Downey himself suggested that he wants to appoint judges who conform to his “values.” Unfortunately, the voters of the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte riding really had no idea what Mr. Downey’s “values” were when we voted.
Moreover, Mr. Downey and Mr. Lewis should reflect on the numbers. The last election was won by a slender plurality of votes — a minority of the number of people who bothered to vote and a small minority of the people who were eligible to vote.
It is instructive to look at a current issue in the U.S.A., where a Supreme Court has had three new members appointed by Donald Trump, a man whose “values” are controversial if not downright suspicious. They recently struck down a half-century-old precedent that broadly permitted women to seek abortions. Now a number of states have made termination of pregnancy difficult if not impossible — even if pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.
In Israel, we see the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promoting legislation that would allow him to place a heavy finger on the scales of Israeli justice. While this may well appeal to some Israelis with similar “values,” one can foresee minority groups — particularly, Palestinians — seriously harmed by this.
No, Mr. Lewis, this is one situation where democracy could end up harming minority rights.
I want the people in charge of our courts of justice appointed because of their commitment to dispensing justice even-handedly, not democratically.
Peter Bursztyn
Barrie
