justice

By Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun

 

Civil disobedience took it on the chin in a B.C. Court of Appeal judgment Wednesday that said such behaviour undermines the rule of law.

 

In a unanimous ruling that took aim at those advocating an end to the current criminal marijuana prohibition, the court said disagreeing with the law does not permit you to break it.

 

Nevertheless, the three-justice panel gave a break to the owners and an employee of the now-defunct-but-once-renowned Holy Smoke Culture Shop in Nelson, reducing the length of their sentences for trafficking pot and sparing them jail time.

 

By Marc Emery, Cannabis Culture

 

I am very pleased to report that I am in good shape, sleeping well, and very busy getting some good work done. Today, Tuesday June 1st, I received six letters from individuals, and about 25 or so from our amazing activist friend Chris Goodwin and supporters at Vapour Central in Toronto, where Chris is manager. Jodie sent me a bunch of photos, which I'm really happy to have! The guys here are impressed by pictures of me with Tommy Chong, ZZ Top, and Sean Paul.

 

I received today's New York Times... today! So I'll get that the day it comes out, which is wonderful, unlike the Seattle Times which comes a day or two business days later. So my mail today was huge: 4 newspapers, one book, an envelope of photos, and about 30+ envelopes with various newspaper clippings, reprints, and letters. I haven't even had time to open all the mail! Getting photos from Jodie was the most exciting, followed by the fact that I will get the New York Times during the week on the day it's issued (weekend copies arrive Monday). Other inmates are looking forward to reading the newspapers too, and my books and magazines when I finish them. I'll bring knowledge and information with me wherever I go!

 

By Carrie Baptist, Rabble.ca

 

In 1973, Jack McCann escaped from a federal prison in British Columbia. Of all the places he could go, he headed straight to the Vancouver Sun. The reason? Jack McCann had been held in solitary confinement for 754 days at that point. He sought to publicize his case and the circumstances faced by others in solitary confinement in the federal penitentiary system in Canada.

 

By Heather Bennett, Yukon News

 

Dear Uma:

 

Your disbelief around the story of the death of Raymond Silverfox is understandable; I am still feeling a sickness in my stomach about what happened, and what is not happening, as a result of Siverfox’s death.

 

By Greg Vandermeulen, Altona Red River Valley Echo

 

The dark side of mandatory minimum sentences was revealed in provincial court last week.

 

Long trumpeted as the fix-all for the justice system, the Conservatives and other proponents loudly proclaimed the glory of mandatory minimums.

 

The idea was that judges are flawed, tied to precedent and too inclined to be merciful. Some types of offenses are so terrible they must have minimums attached.

 

Killing or hurting someone with a firearm was one of those categories that most of us couldn't imagine why we wouldn't have a mandatory minimum.

 

Turns out we should have left that decision to the judges.

 

By Kathryn Leger, The Gazette

 

Isabel Schurman, a lawyer with Schurman Longo Grenier and vice-chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, was last week honoured by l’Association des Avocats de la Défense de Montréal, an organization representing 425 defence lawyers, for more than 25 years of contributions to the defence bar and the advancement of criminal law in Canada.

 

What is the importance of the defence bar in Canada and why do you feel so strongly about it?

 

Canwest News Service

 

North Vancouver RCMP have backed off on a request that would have forced BC Hydro to turn over the records of more than a thousand North Vancouver homeowners using large amounts of power to police.

 

On Thursday, at a closed-door hearing in North Vancouver provincial court, the federal department of justice withdrew the request for the Hydro records after facing a court challenge by the power authority.

 

BC Hydro filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court this month fighting the request after a North Vancouver judge ordered the power company to hand over a list of residential addresses to police of anyone in North Vancouver whose power consumption averaged more than 93 kilowatt hours per day.

 

By: Conrad Black, National Post

 

In the past two years, as regular readers in this space would know, thanks to my gracious hosts in the U.S. government, I have had what could be called extensive hands-on experience of the American correctional system. I have been tutoring and teaching fellow prisoners in English, and in U.S. history. And some of them have taught me how to read music, play the piano, keep fit, diet sensibly and assimilate some local folkways, while I have been fighting my way through the courts toward a just disposition of the few remaining (unfounded) charges that bedevil me. The fact that all my life any definition of Canada's virtue and distinctiveness has prominently included references to civility and decency explains my alarm and outrage at finally reading the three-year-old report on the Correctional Service of Canada, misleadingly titled "A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety."

 

As so often in other fields, this document seeks to import to Canada much of the worst of American practice, and none of the best, unless Canada now idealizes gratuitous official severity.

 

By National Post editorial board

 

When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came to power in 2006, they took to calling themselves Canada’s New Government, determined to signal a break from the discredited Liberal way of running the country. It was to be all about accountability, openness and ethics in government.

 

Fast forward four years or so and the government is fighting a running battle to keep security documents from the eyes of Parliament, stonewalling the auditor general’s request to audit MP’s expenses and refusing to allow ministers’ aides to testify before committees. And now we have Tony Clement, the Industry Minister, flogging products to China on behalf of a private company.

 

By MARIAN SCOTT, The Gazette

 

MONTREAL - Black Montrealers are more than four times as likely as whites to be questioned by police and 21/2 times as likely to be arrested, a public hearing on racial profiling was told yesterday.

 

And black youths between age 12 and 18 are more than twice as likely to be arrested as young whites, said Christopher McAll, a professor of sociology at the Université de Montréal.

 

McAll, who is also scientific director of the Montreal Research Centre on Social Inequalities and Discrimination, unveiled results of a study on blacks in the youth justice system on the first day of hearings by the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission.