A reasonable apprehension of bias — that’s what we learned to call it in law school.
It’s the legal standard, in Canadian law, for disqualifying a judge or decision-maker in an administrative tribunal.
Bias is prejudice, mostly. It’s an unreasonably hostile feeling or opinion about a person or group. In law, we learned, it can be “real” or “perceived.” That is, it doesn’t have to actually happen right out in the open — the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled it can even happen when a decision-maker “might have” acted unfairly.
That’s when a judge or a decision-maker can be disqualified, and kicked off a case. But is a reporter a decision-maker, in the legal sense?
It’s not a question reserved for legal scholars, hidden away behind stacks of musty old volumes in a law library somewhere. On Friday, it became a question for the rest of us, too.
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See Also:
(1) From ‘Dimples McCheery’ to ‘Angry Andrew’: what’s behind the Conservatives’ pivot in strategy
(2) Maxime Bernier targets untapped voters with broader populist platform
(3) Trudeau’s ‘massive blind spot’ applies to health care, too
