The Chief of the Defence Staff's ongoing disregard for the rule of law

It has now been two weeks since the Deputy Chief Military Judge, Lieutenant-Colonel L-V. d'Auteuil issued his judgments in R v Edwards, 2020 CM 3006 and R v Crépeau (as yet unreported).

These judgments focused principally on General Vance's refusal to rescind a problematic order, which places military judges under the jurisdiction of the Deputy Vice Chief of the Defence Staff.  Military judges have consistently held that this undermines their independence.  This blog post expands on many of the issues.

The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) has still not rescinded the order.

Director of Military Prosecutions (DMP), on behalf of the Minister of National Defence, has issued Notices of Appeal for both cases, and Defence Counsel Services have replied with Notices of Appearance. It is no surprise that the DMP has sought to appeal the judgments. However, we can also anticipate that applications for stays of prosecutions will be brought in every single court martial until the CDS rescinds his order. It would not be unreasonable to expect these stays to be granted in most, if not all, of those cases. This stubborn insistence on the part of the CDS has the potential to make the 'interregnum' caused by Beaudry v R, 2018 CMAC 4 look like a minor blip.

Stay tuned ...