QUEBEC — A former justice minister says he has little tangible evidence to back scathing allegations that fundraisers for Quebec's Liberal party influenced the selection of judges.

Marc Bellemare alleges that Liberal financier Franco Fava had sway in the appointment of judges while Bellemare was in office, all with Premier Jean Charest's blessing.

His damning accusations last spring forced Charest to trigger a public inquiry, which kicked off in Quebec City this week.

Bellemare testified Wednesday he had four or five meetings and around 10 telephone conversations with Fava in the summer of 2003.

But when pressed by the commission's prosecutor, he admitted he couldn't produce concrete evidence of those discussions, except for maybe a few notes.

"I don't have any document, audio or video of this," Bellemare, Quebec justice minister from 2003 to 2004, told the inquiry.

"I rarely take notes. I have a good memory and I use it."

Bellemare testified Tuesday that Fava put pressure on him to name the son of a Liberal organizer to the bench.

He alleged that Fava and accountant Charles Rondeau influenced the selections of Quebec judges Marc Bisson, Michel Simard and Line Gosselin-Despres.

Bellemare also said Charest told him to do whatever the party's key bagmen wanted him to.

And the accusations kept coming on Wednesday.

Bellemare alleged that Charest expressed concern the day he resigned that he might one day reveal the political party's hidden influence.

"When we met on the day I stepped down, he (Charest) reminded me of the oath," said Bellemare, who quit cabinet and gave up his national assembly seat in April 2004.

"He was very nervous. He told me, 'You know that you have a ministerial oath: Fava, Rondeau, the judges -- that doesn't exist."'

Bellemare resigned after the Liberals failed to make good on an election promise to kill the province's no-fault car insurance law -- something he had passionately lobbied Quebec governments for since 1994.

On Tuesday, Charest took the unusual step of calling a news conference on short notice, where he denied Bellemare's allegations that he had a special relationship with Fava.

The premier launched a $700,000 defamation suit in the spring against his ex-justice minister.

Bellemare also made allegations the Liberals tried to interfere in a criminal trial, a statement rebuked Wednesday by the former Charest adviser at the centre of the controversy.

Bellemare alleged Tuesday that Denis Roy asked him to intervene in criminal proceedings.

Roy, who now heads a commission that oversees legal aid in the province, says he spoke to Bellemare in 2003 about an ongoing trial, but did not impose anything on the then-justice minister.

The case in question was the mega-trial involving Hells Angels arrested in 2001.

The inquiry is scheduled to resume Monday, with further testimony from Bellemare.

Charest is among the roughly 40 witnesses scheduled to testify over the next several weeks.

The commission is headed by former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache, whose report is due in October.