OTTAWA - Former prime minister Jean Chretien has won one more round -- and probably the last -- in the legal saga over the sponsorship scandal.
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling which quashed Justice John Gomery's conclusion that Chretien bore responsibility for the scandal.
Federal Court Justice Max Teitelbaum ruled in 2008 that Gomery, who headed a public inquiry into the sponsorship affair, was a biased attention-seeker.
The judge said Gomery prejudged the outcome of the investigation and trivialized proceedings through repeated inappropriate comments to the media.
The Harper government appealed that ruling but the appeal court dismissed the case and ordered Ottawa to pay Chretien's legal costs.
Chretien's lawyer, Peter Doody, says it's "a very strong decision in favour of Mr. Chretien," who is "very happy" with the ruling.
The government has 60 days in which to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada but Doody doubts the government will do that.
In a statement, the government said it lodged the appeal to obtain clarity about the appropriate test for bias when a judge acts as a commissioner at a public inquiry.
"We are currently reviewing the judgment to assess its implications for the conduct of public inquiries in the future."
Gomery declined comment.
Doody said the appeal court's ruling means there was "no basis" for any of Gomery's criticisms of Chretien's handling of the sponsorship file.
The sponsorship program was created to raise the profile of the federal government in Quebec after the near-loss of the 1995 referendum on the province's independence.
But the program became a vehicle for Quebec advertising companies to receive funds for little or no work, some of which was kicked back to Liberal party operatives in the province.
Although he did not directly implicate the former prime minister in any wrongdoing, Gomery concluded that Chretien and his former chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, set up the sponsorship program without adequate safeguards against abuse.
Teitelbaum also quashed the findings against Pelletier but an appeal of that ruling was dismissed after Pelletier died early last year.
The three appeal court justices specifically endorsed three paragraphs of Teitelbaum's decision, in which he ruled it was inappropriate for Gomery to have given media interviews and expressed opinions about evidence before concluding his investigation.
Among other things, Gomery famously referred to his inquiry as "the best show in town," spoke of future evidence as "juicy stuff," and criticized golf balls emblazoned with Chretien's signature as "small town cheap."
