Two key players in last year's student crisis, student association ASSE and Montreal's Police Brotherhood union, do not intend to participate in Quebec's special commission looking into the events.

Montreal's Police Brotherhood union has given its members orders to boycott the commission.

"We won't be the only one who will be absent, so I dont think the report they're going to make will have any credibility and the problem is for them, not for us," says Yves Francoeur, the president of the Montreal Police Brotherhood union.

Student association ASSE also says it will be absent.

"The mandate disappoints every single actor who was involved in the Maple Spring," says ASSE spokesman Jérémie Bédard-Wien.

The head of the commission, former PQ public security minister Serge Ménard, says people have already judged the outcome of his inquiry.

"They misinterpret the language of the committee. They think that we're there to judge what they did," says Ménard.

Ménard says the commission's aim is to look into what caused the student protests to descend into confrontation and crisis and to identify solutions to avoid such chaos in the future. He says the commission will not be a trial for student groups or police.

"I'm not the type that likes petty politics. We will not render political judgements," he says.

The federations representing both college and universities students will vote on whether to participate int he commission over the next few weeks.