A Toronto justice of the peace’s decision to insert himself in a criminal case involving his partner has cost him his job.

Tom Foulds, appointed to the bench in 1999, was fired last week, in an order-in-council from the lieutenant-governor posted online this week.

The move was in response to a recommendation from the Justices of the Peace Review Council, an independent body, which concluded Foulds had committed judicial misconduct by involving himself in an assault case in which his partner was an alleged assault victim.

He signed what is known as the “information” laying out the charge against the man accused of assaulting Foulds’ partner; repeatedly asked Crown attorneys at the College Park courthouse about the case, as they tried to brush him away; and signed the subpoena requiring his partner to testify.

The assault charge in the case was later stayed by the Crown.

“The hearing panel concludes that the actions of Justice of the Peace Foulds ... have eroded the confidence of the public in His Worship as a judicial officer beyond reclamation. In the process, the integrity of the judiciary and confidence in the administration of justice has also been damaged,” the review council said in its decision, recommending to Attorney General Yasir Naqvi that Foulds be fired.

It was the second time that Foulds had been found guilty of judicial misconduct by a discipline panel over a conflict of interest. He had previously been suspended for seven days without pay in 2013 for interfering in the health inspection of a friend’s restaurant.

A recommendation for termination is rarely handed down by the review council; the last time was in 2015, when a discipline panel recommended that Justice of the Peace Errol Massiah be fired for sexually harassing women at the Whitby courthouse. The government sacked him within days.