The Quebec government will not have to pay former Premier Jean Charest $700,000 for abuse of process.
The Superior Court has rejected the former premier’s request.
The decision was handed down this week by Judge Gregory Moore.
The ecase is linked to the leak of confidential documents from the Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC) to the media in 2017.
At the time, Charest sued for invasion of his privacy and was awarded $385,000 in a court judgment which was handed down in April 2023.
Through his lawyers, Charest then filed another motion, arguing that the Attorney General of Quebec had abused the process in that the essence of his defence was false and ill-founded.
In his decision handed down on Tuesday, Moore disagreed and dismissed the application for a declaration of abuse of process.
Charest was claiming more than $200,000 in punitive damages, $512,000 to pay his lawyers’ fees and $5,000 in moral damages.
The total amount claimed was $717,000.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews.