A judge in the Ontario town of Hamilton who wore a “Make America Great Again” cap in court the morning after Donald Trump’s electoral win has been suspended for 30 days.
Judge Bernd Zabel appeared before a disciplinary hearing last month, and said he did not support the American president, but was simply trying to make people laugh when he wore the baseball cap with the phrase Trump used during his campaign. Zabel appeared before a disciplinary hearing in Toronto last month, and apologized for wearing it. He has not been hearing cases since December.
The suspension is the most serious sanction that the Ontario Judicial Council can impose, short of dismissing the judge. After news broke that Zabel wore the cap, the council received 81 complaints. The most common complain was that the veteran judge’s conduct “represented an unacceptable expression of partisan political views by a judge.”
Trump’s views attracted wide attention in Canada and many Canadians expressed their strong disagreement with his policies. Zabel has said wearing “Make America Great Again” cap was the biggest mistake of his judicial career. “The man depicted in those complaints is not me,” he said. “I’m not a racist, I’m not a bigot, I’m not a misogynist.”
Zabel who has been a judge for 27 years has an unblemished record.
The judge, appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 1990, earned almost $290,000 last year. Judges in Canada are not elected. Appointments to Justice Zabel’s court are made by a nonpartisan, 13-member committee.
Ranjan Agarwal, a board director of the South Asian Bar Association of Toronto said in a statement: “Notwithstanding the hearing panel’s finding to the contrary, the public in Hamilton cannot have confidence that Justice Zabel will be impartial. Muslim and South Asian lawyers and litigants, in particular, will always wonder if Justice Zabel’s rulings are informed by his appreciation for a president who believes they should be barred from Western society.”
