Brian McLean promoted to chief justice, Karen Lee appointed to Woodstock Provincial Court as justice minister announces two promotions, two appointments
The Woodstock-area legal community welcomes this week’s judicial announcements involving the promotion of two judges and the appointment of two new judges to provincial court in Woodstock and Fredericton.
New Brunswick Justice Minister Hugh J. Flemming announced the appointments in a press release on Aug. 14.
Minister Flemming announced that Brian McLean will serve a seven-year term as chief judge, replacing Marco Cloutier, appointed to the trial division of the Court of King’s Bench by the federal government in July.
McLean has served as the associate court judge since 2022. Mélanie Poirier LeBlanc will replace McLean in that role.
Flemming also announced the appointment of Karen Lee as a provincial court judge in Woodstock and Pierre Gionet as a provincial court judge in Fredericton.
Tim Culbert, a Woodstock lawyer and member of the Carleton-Victoria Bar Association, welcomed the news, saying he hopes it will ease some of the heavy burden on the region’s court system.
“I think it is a really positive step in the right direction,” said Culbert, who, along with fellow bar association members, has pushed hard over the past several months to add judges to Woodstock’s overburdened court system.
“I’m not sure our lobbying had anything to do with it, but it’s good news,” he said.
In February, Culbert and 13 other members of the Carleton-Victoria Bar Association contacted Flemming, stressing that the dire shortage of judges serving the Upper St. John River Valley posed a significant threat to the delivery of justice in the area.
“Lawyers practicing in the Woodstock Judicial District are experiencing especially significant delays, which we fear will be more pronounced following the transfer of Justice Richard Petrie from the Woodstock Judicial District to the Judicial District of Fredericton on Dec. 12, 2023,” the lawyers wrote.
Members of the bar association referred to a memorandum, dated Sept. 27, 2023, from Chief Justice Tracey K. DeWare to Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick, Marc Richard; the Honourable Justices of the New Brunswick Court of King’s Bench; the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of New Brunswick, Ted Flemming, and to Members of the New Brunswick Law Society.
In this memorandum, Chief Justice DeWare warned that vacancies in the New Brunswick Court of King’s Bench had caused delays in many of New Brunswick’s judicial districts.
DeWare explained that the delays are especially pronounced in the Family Division because of frequent adjournments of “non urgent matters to accommodate child protection hearings and criminal matters, which must be adjudicated within strict timelines.”
In its letter to the justice minister, the Carleton-Victoria Bar Association members stressed the vital need to address the appointment and retention of judges and clerks.
“First and foremost, we ask that you lobby for a judge to be quickly appointed for the Woodstock Judicial District,” they wrote. “The lack of a King’s Bench judge in this judicial District will cause serious delays and will further impact the administration of justice. Our justice system is already plagued by significant delays, and we cannot afford more of the same.”
While this week’s appointments won’t erase all the systemic problems in the justice system, he hopes it will ease the ongoing delays in cases and the immediate threats to the system.
While Lee’s appointment to the Woodstock provincial court bench will help, Culbert said it’s vital she remains in place long-term. He explained that “the revolving door” of judges, which saw appointments quickly transferred to other jurisdictions, failed to reduce the caseload before the courts.
“Our major backlog is still here,” he said.
Culbert said the system is failing their clients, whether in family, civil, or provincial courts.
While this week’s appointments add highly qualified legal minds to the bench, he said the judges’ workload remains overwhelming.
He said most lawyers face frustrated clients as court dates and trials are continuously bumped, noting he had one case delayed more than a year after being rescheduled three or four times.
The new appointees bring impressive legal resumes to their new positions.
McLean graduated from UNB with a law degree in 1995 and was appointed to the bar in 1996. He practiced law in Carleton County for almost two decades before being appointed to the bench in 2014.
Lee of Woodstock, who most recently served as executive director of Public Prosecution Services, graduated with a law degree from UNB in 2000 and was admitted to the bar in 2001.
Porier LeBlanc, a Université de Moncton law graduate in 2003, served as assistant deputy attorney general of Public Prosecution Services before her appointment to the bench.
Gionet, a Université de Moncton grad, has served as a crown prosecutor since 2000.
With these changes, Minister Flemming said the court has its full complement of 25 full-time judges, including the chief judge and associate chief judge, in addition to four supernumerary and four per diem judges.
