His attorneys’ motion, filed in Superior Court earlier this week, follows the Superior Court’s ruling earlier in April that awarded him $385,000 in the same case.

So if he wins outright, he’s effectively getting just over 1.1 million.

To justify their request, Mr. Charest’s attorneys allege that the Quebec Attorney General used delaying tactics and abuse of procedure, particularly by delaying the service of documents.

“The prosecutor abused the process in that the nature of his defense system was flawed, manifestly unfounded and hesitant,” the original motion reads.

The public prosecutor’s office had therefore “shown harassing behavior and inexplicable inexorability towards the applicant”.

Mr. Charest is seeking more than $200,000 in punitive damages. He is also seeking $512,000 to pay his legal fees and $5,000 in moral damages.

The amount thus amounts to a total of $717,000.

Recall that in his early April decision, Judge Gregory Moore ordered the state of Quebec to pay Mr. Charest $385,000 for illegal disclosure of personal information.

The former prime minister actually sued the state of Quebec after details of the Mâchurer investigation — into funding for the Quebec Liberal Party — was leaked to the media by UPAC in 2017.

However, in his ruling, Judge Moore also authorized the plaintiff to file an additional abuse of procedure complaint to obtain additional compensation, hence the lawsuit filed this week.

recall of facts

Let’s remember the facts. In April 2014, UPAC conducted the Mâchurer Inquiry into sectoral funding, which was spearheaded by the Quebec Liberal Party when led by Mr. Charest.

Three years later, in 2017, the Journal de Montréal published documents held by UPAC.

In particular, they reveal that Mr. Charest was under police surveillance and that UPAC attempted to obtain his communications with Marc Bibeau, who was presented as the PLQ’s major fundraiser at the time Mr. Charest was in charge.

The UPAC also wanted to know the comings and goings at the borders of the two men. In those documents, UPAC said it investigates corruption and breach of trust, two crimes.

Personal information about Mr. Charest was also shared with the Journal de Montréal.

The UPAC commissioner confirmed that a member of his organization was responsible for the leak and that an administrative inquiry has been launched to determine its origin. Quebec’s Attorney General has confirmed that a member of UPAC is the origin of the leak, Mr Charest’s lawyers recall.

In 2018, given the seriousness of the matter, the Department of Public Safety asked the Bureau of Independent Investigations (BEI) to shed light on the leaks.

He identified a total of 37 leaks to the media between 2012 and 2018. The BEI investigator later revised the number of leaks up to 54.

Mr Charest was not charged as part of the Machûrer inquiry, which mentioned him as a “person of interest”, but he felt the disclosure of information had tarnished his reputation.

Judge Moore therefore agreed, awarding him $385,000.