Jun 04, 2009 04:30 AM
aul Cosgrove, who quit rather than risk being Canada's first federally appointed judge to be removed from office, will collect an annual pension of more than $178,000.
The Ontario Superior Court judge resigned in April after the Canadian Judicial Council recommended he be stripped of office. It said his handling of a 1999 murder trial amounted to misconduct destructive of public confidence in the judicial system.
Cosgrove, 74, a former mayor of Scarborough and one-time Liberal MP who spent 25 years on the bench, freed the accused and ruled the Crown and police committed more than 150 violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. An appeal court later ruled most of his conclusions were baseless.
Cosgrove will not receive a parliamentary pension because he was an MP for only four years.
Star Staff
Commentary
Cosgrove has a legal right to his pension. Just because he screwed up very royally and publicly and became one of the very very small number of judges if not the only one in the mind of the public who somehow managed to get a negative finding from the Judicial council. Canadians need to be more concerned about present serving judges who are blatantly corrupt and flagrantly and habitually abuse their absolute power while leaving a trail of destroyed lives, with, absolute immunity and insulting impunity. Its time for a real Judicial Council with real powers to investigate every substantive complaint that at present is swept away like another drop in the ocean. Check out Roscoe's research at the Ottawa Mens Centre