Former Alberta justice minister Jonathan Denis' bid to overturn his contempt of court conviction has failed. .He was found guilty last month of trying to intimidate Alberta’s former chief medical examiner, Anny Sauvageau, for sending a letter to her lawyer during her wrongful dismissal lawsuit. .Denis, minister of justice from 2012 to 2015, asked the Court of Appeal last week to stay the contempt charge pending an appeal, arguing Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Doreen Sulyma failed to follow procedural safeguards in finding him guilty..Denis said the contempt finding has caused “irreparable” harm to his reputation, causing three lawyers and at least one client to leave his firm, the Calgary Sun reported. .Court of Appeal Justice Ritu Khullar declined to stay the conviction and denied a request for an expedited appeal..“If the appeal is ultimately successful, and this court quashes the finding of contempt, Mr. Denis has not shown why that would not repair any damage to his reputation,” Khullar wrote..She further said Denis “overestimates the ability of a stay pending appeal to stop harm to his reputation.”.Sauvageau, who served from 2011 to 2014, says she was forced from the job for standing up to political interference in her office. Her trial is ongoing..On April 7, a week into the trial, Sauvageau’s lawyer received a letter from a lawyer with Denis’s Guardian Law Group, accusing Sauvageau of defaming Denis in her testimony and conducting a “seven-year campaign of defamation and harassment” against him..Sulyma later ruled Denis’s letter was an “act of intimidation,” and accepted Sauvageau’s claim that the threat of a lawsuit made her afraid to give evidence..Contempt of court carries sentences that include fines and up to two years in jail. .A stay would send a message “that this appeal has merit, there is the potential that Justice Sulyma was wrong, and there is the possibility I have yet to have a fair opportunity ... to vindicate and defend myself,” Dennis said in a written submission. .Khullar found he failed to prove he had suffered “irreparable” harm to his reputation that could be fixed by the court and disagreed a stay would send a message about his appeal’s merits..“All it says is that there is a serious question to be decided about the contempt finding and that the remainder of the test for a stay has been met.”.Denis is “pleased that the Court of Appeal noted that there is a serious issue to be tried regarding our position that the proper procedure was not followed at the lower court,” Brendan Miller, Dennis’ lawyer said in an email..“This matter is over one letter sent from one lawyer to another and we believe there could have been an entirely different result had the proper procedure been followed.”.A date for a sentencing hearing on Denis’s conviction has not been set.
