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Her job at the time was in the “regulatory and economic” part of the prosecution service, which doesn’t deal precisely with terrorism and crime but does handle refugee and immigration offences. She was uncomfortable with the prospect of working under laws she believed were wrong.

A federal lawyer can be uncomfortable with parts of the law as long as he or she follows it. The question for the Public Service Commission was whether running for the New Democrats — picking up a particular party’s banner — would be a problem for Taman doing her job properly if she lost.

Maybe it would be, the appeals court ruled. But the commission didn’t explain how, exactly, being a known New Democrat would get in the way of Taman’s being a government lawyer. Observing that Taman’s job as a prosecutor gave her a lot of autonomy, discretion and public visibility, and therefore a lot of potential room to be partisan, wasn’t enough.

The prospect she might handle cases under the Lobbying Act or the Canada Elections Act wasn’t enough, either. She could stay away from cases where she’d have a personal conflict of interest, as lawyers do all the time. To forbid her to run, the commission had to conclude she couldn’t do her job after running and losing, and it had to explain how it reached that conclusion.

“Ms. Taman’s autonomy, discretion and visibility would have been the same before and after the election. If they did not contribute to the impairment of her ability (as opposed to a perception of her ability) to discharge her duties before the election, why would they have done so after the election? The opportunity to act in a partisan manner would have been the same before and after the election. If Ms. Taman’s political opinions did not colour the exercise of her discretion before the election, why would they do so after the election?” the judges asked.