Stephen Harper appeared to admit this week that he's looking for judges who will back his law-and-order agenda, prompting renewed outrage from opponents who accuse him of attempting to politicize the judiciary.

"We are bringing forward laws to make sure that we crack down on crime - that we make our streets and communities safer," the Prime Minister said during Question Period on Wednesday. "We want to make sure our selection of judges is in correspondence with those objectives."

"The Prime Minister has confirmed our worst suspicions on this issue," Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff said in response. But Harper stressed his government's belief in an independent judiciary and the broader range of "voices" now represented on the judicial advisory committees(JACs), which are responsible for choosing judges for Canada's superior courts.

Stéphane Dion suggested Harper had inadvertently tipped his hand. "He has a lot of difficulty to hide his neo-conservative, very right-wing agenda," the Liberal leader said in an interview. "He tries his best to look centrist and moderate, but he's unable to hide it."

"You never know with this government," NDP leader Jack Layton said, while reserving final judgment on changes to the structure of the advisory committees. "The way they have decided to choose judges certainly indicates that they are adopting a much more partisan approach to the whole question."

In November, then-justice minister Vic Toews announced that the law enforcement community would nominate one member to each of the country's 16 JACs, bringing the total number of members to eight.

Toews also announced that the chair of each committee would no longer vote, except to break a tie - leading to charges that the federal government would have a "majority" on each committee: the minister of justice's three nominees, plus the law enforcement representative.

"So you now have seven members who can vote, four of whom owe their appointment to the federal government," Liberal MP Marlene Jennings told Macleans.ca on Tuesday.

In fact, however, the Canadian Police Association - not the minister - nominates the law enforcement representatives, according to the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.

All JAC members are appointed by the Minister of Justice, Deputy Commissioner Marc Giroux told Macleans.ca. But the minister's consultations with the Canadian Police Association are no different than those he conducts with provincial chief justices and attorneys general or with the Canadian Bar Association - each of which nominates a member to each JAC.

Another seemingly subtle but controversial measure involves changing the rating system used by the committees to assess the candidate judges. Where there had been a three-tier system - "not recommended," "recommended," and "highly recommended" - there is now only "unable to recommend" and "recommended." Critics have charged that this "lowers the bar" for judges.

Reports this week suggested that over half the other members named to the advisory panels have been people with Tory party ties, or who have complained publicly about the perceived left-leaning nature of the current judiciary.

But others are claiming that the Conservative approach is little different from the Liberals'. A review  of Liberal appointments to JACs conducted by the National Post found that at least nine loyal party members were appointed in 2005 alone.

"It was exactly the same under [the Liberals]," Peter Bowel, a law professor at the University of Calgary, told the Post. "It's not more politicized today."

"The Liberals could have difficulty getting on their high horse when it comes to partisanship," University of Toronto law professor Lorne Sossin told the Post.

And McGill University law professor Roderick Macdonald told the Post that partisanship shouldn't be the issue. "The fact that someone has previous ties to a political party... should not be a disqualification," he said. "The real questions are: Are the people who have been selected competent? And will they do the job asked of them with integrity?"

It was on that front that Jennings attempted to defend her party, saying that even if the allegations of partisan Liberal appointments were true, the structural changes instituted by the Conservatives gave "partisan, political, ideologically bent candidates" more push.

But on Wednesday, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson attempted to dismiss the debate as simple partisan mudslinging. "We want individuals who are on the bench who are competent, first-class legal minds. I think the judicial system in this country works very well. We are supportive of the Charter, we are supportive of the judicial system in this country. We think it works well," he told  The Globe and Mail.

"And we think we have an obligation and the right to appoint judges to the bench. I'm just amazed by the weeping and the gnashing of teeth coming from the Liberals. I can tell you what I think - it's just that they're not appointing the judges."

With files from Canadian Press

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