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
(4) Close calls in politics about the win, not the boxscore
(5) The fiscal follies of Justin Trudeau
