Jumping the Gun

In a bout of premature ejaculation, this week, Canada’s Conservative opposition leader, Stephen Harper, highlighted one of the real impediments to understanding and fighting corruption.
A reasonable person would expect that a long running enquiry would be satisfactory in revealing much of the truth of the country’s ‘sponsorship scandal’.
Not content with that, Harper shot from the hip and predicted; “the prime minister's office will leak ‘slanted versions’ of the Gomery report before it's made public...”
The predictions and second guessing are part of the ‘political games’ of corruption enquiry. On one side the spin doctors, over the other side those who are looking for the worst possible outcome.
Well, Martin’s office did not leak any version of the findings. I guess, in reality, there was no real reason for them to jump the gun when the report was going to exonerate the Prime Minister.
Harper missed the mark with his comments, and continues to display an immaturity which does not sit well on a Prime Minister in waiting.

The idea of independent enquiries and commissions, often chaired by highly experienced legal administrators, is to gather information in an environment of complete integrity. If you can’t trust the enquiry then the process is doomed.
It was the media, in Washington last week, hoping and praying for a leak from Fitzgerald to cover up their previous lack of engagement with the CIA leak. The media do have an interest in sensationalising and at times demonizing, just as the politicians do.
To their credit, Gomery and Fitzgerald both maintained a watertight security on their findings.

There are two sides to the enquiry process. The first is obviously the need to get the facts and evidence to prosecute wrong doers where they exist. The second is the opportunity to build an understanding of the dynamics of corrupt activities to better protect against them.
Perhaps, as part of developing anti-corruption methods, wide contempt provisions should be put in place around enquiries. This is not to suppress ‘fair comment’ and reporting, but reduce speculation, leaks and sensationalizing proceedings and findings.
Similar provisions exist in most ordinary court jurisdictions. In the heated political atmosphere this kind of provision is essential.