Judges in Quebec

From the Montreal Gazette

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Appeals+Court+judge+pulled+Hells+case/2965759/story.html

MONTREAL - A judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal has been pulled off a case involving the Hells Angels because he once represented the biker gang as a lawyer.

Radio-Canada reported Thursday that Quebec’s chief justice, Michel Robert, made the decision to remove Quebec Court of Appeal Judge Jacques Léger after learning he advised the Hells in a case involving the gang’s trademarks before being appointed to the higher court in 2006.

Léger was scheduled to preside over a bail hearing next Tuesday of four Hells charged with murder. Léger had not informed the chief magistrate of his past or decided himself, as per the tradition, to decline to hear the case.

'Arrogant' BAT tried to remove a judge

From The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/03/bat-tried-to-remove-judge

British American Tobacco, one of the UK's most powerful companies, has been accused of "breathtaking arrogance" after one of its subsidiaries pushed for the removal of a judge hearing a cancer compensation lawsuit being brought against it.

The company, which each year produces 715 billion cigarettes in 41 countries and employs more than 50,000 people, claimed an Australian judge, Jim Curtis, would not have "an impartial and unprejudiced mind'' over the case brought by Claudia Jean Laurie, the widow of a smoker.

The company, which last year made global profits of almost £2.7bn, said this was because in a separate case in 2006 Curtis had branded BAT Australia "dishonest" for its role in the destruction of documents relating to the potentially harmful effects of its products.

Curtis said the company destroyed documents in anticipation of legal action and "dishonestly concealed this purpose by pretence of a rational non-selective housekeeping policy".

A former senior BAT executive, Fred Gulson, admitted the purpose of the policy was "to get rid of all the sensitive documents… under the guise of an innocent housekeeping arrangement".