The provincial justice ministry had to increase spending to put a new judge in the Provincial Court in Clarenville even though the caseload in the court didn’t justify the decision, government documents reveal.
Director of Public Prosecutions Donovan Molloy e-mailed then-deputy justice minister Paul Noble on September 6, 2014 about a news story in the Telegram. Finance minister Ross Wiseman told the Telegram that plans were in the works to appoint a judge in Clarenville.
Noble replied that he “literally and figuratively” had no idea what Wiseman was talking about.
But in another e-mail sent on August 28, Noble had asked assistant deputy minister Heather Jacobs and departmental controller Deborah Dunphy to “trace the evolution” of the issue. Specifically, Noble said he was trying “to unravel the details” about how many judge positions the department had and how much funding went with them.
“It boils down to why we cannot appoint a judge in Clarenville, which in turn is connected to” an issue the departmental censors blacked out.
