The legal battle between the Forum of Mayors of the Acadian Peninsula and the provincial government took an important step by holding a hearing in Bathurst on Wednesday, where the two parties had an opportunity to make their closing arguments.

The Peninsula Mayors’ Group is calling for a judicial review of the provincial government’s decision to close the Caraquet and Tracadie courthouses in 2022.

The Mayors’ Forum believes the government’s decision to close the two courts violates articles of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The articles dealing with the official languages ​​of Canada establish, among other things, that French and English are the official languages ​​of New Brunswick and that they have equal status, rights and privileges with respect to their use in the institutions of the legislature and government of New Brunswick .

Before Judge Christa Bourque of the Court of King’s Bench, representatives of the Forum of Mayors of the Acadian Peninsula pointed out that the Department of Justice and Public Safety failed to take into account the Official Languages ​​Act when deciding to close the two courthouses.

In her opinion, the decision is based on simple attendance statistics and budget measures.

With these two courts, the Acadian Peninsula had the only judicial unit in the province whose working language was French.

Jason Godin, one of the forum’s representatives, told the court that at the time of the decision, Secretary Hugh Flemming had a duty to assess the needs of the community and the impact of the closure of the two palaces.

In his opinion, this impact on defendants and victims is not insignificant given the lack of access to the justice system in the region and the long journey to Bathurst, where cases have been tried since the closures.

The Forum of Mayors of the Peninsula is also of the opinion that the minister did not take into account the importance of the police presence or even the police resources on the territory of the Acadian Peninsula when making his decision.

“There was a lack of guidance and consideration,” Me Godin said.

For his part, his colleague, Jean-Marc Gauvin, pointed out that there was reason to question whether the closures of the courts were consistent with the development of the community, which wanted to develop and prosper.

Responding to the arguments of the Acadian mayors, the representative of the provincial government pointed to the significant decrease in attendance in courtrooms and the underutilization of rented premises and human resources.

Nathalie Thibault pointed out that there is no evidence that this closure decision hinders the development of the Acadian community and restricting access to the justice system.

In her view, there are also no indications that the minister responsible exceeded his discretion and acted in bad faith.

The Justice Department attorney also stressed to Judge Bourque that the courts must show some consideration to government policy decisions, unless those decisions were made in bad faith.

“The law obliges the government to provide judicial services in the language of their choice, not to keep courthouses open,” Me Thibault said in his closing arguments.

Judge Christa Bourque said she will review the case carefully before making a decision at a later date.

Caraquet Mayor Bernard Thériault said he was disappointed with the provincial government’s handling of the matter, which he felt was narrow-minded and disregarding communities.

“We will call for the immediate relocation of judicial services in the Acadian Peninsula to the place where it is most practical if the judge’s decision is favorable to us,” said the one who is also president of the Forum of Mayors of the Acadian Peninsula .

The hearing, which lasted all day, was attended by the mayors of Shippagan, Tracadie and Neguac, in addition to Bernard Thériault.