Then-Federal Court Justice Robin Camp arrives with his wife Mariaan, right, and daughter Lauren at a Canadian Judicial Council inquiry in Calgary in September of last year. Camp resigned his seat on the bench on Thursday.

Then-Federal Court Justice Robin Camp arrives with his wife Mariaan, right, and daughter Lauren at a Canadian Judicial Council inquiry in Calgary in September of last year. Camp resigned his seat on the bench on Thursday.
Photo Credit: CP Photo / Jeff McIntosh

Following watchdog’s recommendation, ‘knees together judge’ resigns from bench

He apologized several times, underwent counselling and took additional training in Canadian sexual assault laws, but Federal Court Justice Robin Camp no longer has a job, the result of controversial comments he made during a sexual assault trial in Calgary in 2014.

Camp resigned on Thursday after the Canadian Judicial Council, the country’s judicial watchdog, recommended he be removed from the bench.

During the 2014 trial, Camp told the young woman in the case that “pain and sex sometimes go together” and asked why she didn’t just keep her “knees together.”

Following the comments, he became known in the media as the “knees together judge.”

In making its recommendation that Camp be removed, the CJC did not mince words, saying he “showed obvious disdain for some of the characteristics of the regime enacted by Parliament in respect of sexual assault issues.”

The CJC added: “We find that the judge’s conduct, viewed in its totality and in light of all its consequences, was so manifestly and profoundly destructive of the concept of impartiality, integrity and independence of the judicial role that public confidence is sufficiently undermined to render the judge incapable of executing the judicial office.”

A provincial court judge at the time of the 2014 sexual assault trial, Camp acquitted the accused and was later promoted to the Federal Court.

Last fall, Camp told an inquiry into his comments and handling of the case that he now recognized how the comment came from a “deep-rooted” bias he had, and regretted ever uttering the “inappropriate” words.

“I wish I hadn’t said them,” he testified.

Parliament voted unanimously this week to move to committee a bill proposed by interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose to ensure that judges know Canada’s sexual assault laws.

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