quote:

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Dear Deputy Judge Rai

I understand you have been asking for more time allocated to you for sitting as a deputy judge.

Mr. Justice Lalonde and I are conscious of the need to ensure continuity in the services offered to Small Claims Court litigants, and therefore are consciously enabling the scheduling lawyers who will be with us for a lengthy period of time, to develop experience as deputy judges.

We are aware that you will be 75 in June, and thus ending your term of service according to the same protocol as for Superior Court judges.

This will be confirmed to you later and our formal thanks will be expressed at that time.

Yours truly

Monique Métivier

Regional Senior Justice

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Now, admittedly, the position is "at pleasure", so if no reason for the non-renewal had been given, the decision of Mme. Justice Metivier would be unassailable. But when a gratuitiously provided reason, and seemingly the only reason flies in the face of a specificly prohibitted ground of discrimination in employment, the wonk in me wonders.

Mind you, I have absolutely no knowledge of Deputy Judge Rai's competence and I have very often been left shaking my head and/or my fist (out of sight of course ) at the apparent lack of capacity of some of the oldfarts that sit as Dep. S.C.C. Judges here. (Not that most of them are anything short of brilliant ) So, I have no opinion on the merits, but I really do wonder at a Judge using age as a basis of discrimination in the context of filling an administrative role for the Provinince.

O.K. I'm now recalling/seeing that the Ontario Human Rights Code defines "age" as between 18 - 65. But I'm also recalling that there have been cases where that definition itself has been attacked on Charter grounds, and was held to be a s. 1 "reasonable limit prescribed by law" in the context of employment and retirement. I think that was a U. of Guelph professor professor objecting to manadatory retirement at 65, but that's just memory.

In other words, a four year old can be excluded from a tavern, without any suggestion that his human rights have been impugned.

Similarly, people over the age of 65 have no protection from age-based decisions.

Other courts have age limits written right into their statutes. The Supreme Court has, and I believe a number of Provincial Courts of Appeal do, too.

I remember in high school some of us used to call it "joining the fifty-two-fifty club" if someone got fined for drinking underage (that was the amount of the fine then).