Provincial court judges and justices of the peace who are fired for misconduct will no longer have the possibility of recouping their legal costs from the government, according to new justice legislation proposed Monday.

At the moment, the Ontario Judicial Council can recommend to the attorney general that a judge fired for misconduct be compensated for the legal costs of their discipline proceedings, in part or in full; the Justices of the Peace Review Council can do the same for JPs.

In the case of judges, the law says the attorney general must follow the recommendation. For JPs, he has the discretion to disagree.

“It was just offensive to me,” Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey said of the practice in an interview with the Star on Monday. “If somebody is fired for misconduct, I don’t think we should be paying their legal fees.”

Caroline Mulroney, Downey’s predecessor as attorney general, approved recommendations for compensation for two JPs fired in 2018, Tom Foulds and Richard Bisson. They each received $20,000 in public dollars.

But the proposed changes would not touch compensation for judges and JPs who face discipline but are not fired. Downey himself approved a recommendation this year to compensate York Region JP Adele Romagnoli almost $34,000 — Romagnoli was not fired but rather ordered to take additional training after admitting she failed to know and apply the law.

“I do not want to pay legal fees for judges and JPs who are found in any form to have done misconduct, but we’re starting here,” Downey said of the decision to limit the ban on paying legal fees to jurists to were actually fired.

The legislation would also not prevent judges and JPs who retire prior to their discipline hearing from still trying to get compensation for legal costs incurred leading up to the hearing.

The proposed change to compensation rules is one part of massive new justice legislation the Ontario government tabled Monday, proposing changes to everything from legal aid to class action lawsuits to the disciplining of lawyers and judges.

What’s not contained in the legislation are proposed changes to the way provincial court judges are appointed.

Downey had suggested to a law conference in November that he was contemplating changes to the appointments process, but that declaration immediately led to legal organizations sounding the alarm, saying the appointments process in Ontario is already considered one of the best in the world.

Downey suggested he’d like to see the independent judicial advisory committees submitting longer lists of recommended candidates to him for judicial appointments.

“I wanted to start the conversation, and it certainly did start and we’ll pick it up in the new year,” Downey said. “Everybody agrees we need to maintain the integrity of the system, but I think we need to have a bigger pool of applicants.”