Dirty Tactics In The B.C. Supreme Court?

Are those last matters shadowy and uncertain? If so, Elliott’s response to the brutal Taser death of Robert Dziekanski caused by four RCMP officers in Vancouver Airport is not. First, Elliott didn’t respond at all. Then, forced to by the blatantly incriminating video of the event, Elliot (to quote Geoff Olson, Vanc. Courier, Nov 27 07 11) “defended the reliability of Tasers while questioning the reliability of high-quality digital film. ‘We do not [Olson quotes Elliott as saying], however, believe that it is appropriate to draw conclusions based on those images alone’”. No convincing concern. No expression of fear that officers under his command may have engaged in criminal activity causing death. No announcement of a public, independent inquiry. Instead, more cover-up. As op-ed writers Don Rosenbloom and Jim Aldridge, lawyers, put it: “The Commissioner remains incommunicado”. (Vanc. Sun, Nov 27, 07 A11) Just incidentally, I am at the present time writing and writing and writing to William Elliott, RCMP head, and to Paul Kennedy, Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, about another hair-raising allegation of RCMP wrong-doing. The two men will not even acknowledge, let alone reply to my letters. “The Commissioner remains incommunicado.” Public servants? Public responsibility? Isn’t it conspiracy theory, you say, to write of “a large, concerted policy” to erode the institutions of public responsibility? I don’t know, or care. What I know is the Stephen Harper government is rachetting up actions against anti-war, anti-Canada-in-Afghanistan (etc) people, is tightening laws against street-level misdemeanours and people essentially without social power, and is strengthening support for and ties with corporate wrong-doers and their defenders among police and other organizations. Desperately needed is a full-scale review and restructuring of police powers and the police oversight (restraining) organizations in Canada to prevent events like the Taser death of Robert Dziekanski. The Stephen Harper government is not slightly interested in that aspect of “law and order”. Little by little, the RCMP is being unleashed, permitted open, criminal violence against ordinary people as a part of becoming a naked, paramilitary force in support of corporate takeover of government in Canada and the repression of political dissent here. Read that again. There. Someone has said it at last. There are fine, wonderful RCMP officers. You saw some of them appear at the Maher Arar parliamentary committee hearings to expose the deep rot at RCMP headquarters. None of those men, however, was set to work to help clean up Head Office. And they are all now out of sight. That’s the story everywhere. And so “good” police officers are keeping their noses clean, keeping out of trouble. They are there. You might meet one of them. But they aren’t in charge…. All that is meager introduction to a simple matter – the investigations and hearings moving (?) towards trial of three men accused (variously) of fraud and breach of trust in the scandalous and corrupt sale of B.C. Rail by the Gordon Campbell B.C. cabinet. The accusations against the three men were set on foot by quiet drug investigation and then the dramatic search warrant “raids” on B.C. legislature offices and homes/offices of many people “of interest” to RCMP investigators on December 28, 2003. The endless, dilatory, inadequate, serpentine, ridiculous series of court hearings is fast approaching the four year anniversary date of the search warrant “raids”. And on November 23, Special Crown Prosecutor William Berardino announced he would be requesting the right to have secret witnesses testify in camera concerning the charges against Basi, Virk, and Basi, the only people formally accused in what appears, more and more, to have been a large, intricate network of wrong-doers at work. Berardino’s request must be resisted by every force British Columbians can muster. In camera testimony is normally permitted only to assure the personal safety of witnesses. It is not a special status granted to (a) witnesses wanting to guard reputation (b) witnesses involved in other trials (c) witnesses in powerful political positions, etc. “Equality before the law” means just that. All are persons without particular rank before the courts. None may request special treatment. A man may be a Lord on the courthouse steps. But in the courtroom he is plain Conrad Black. The decay – all around us – of public responsibility is reaching, as I have written here, into the courts of Canada. It must be resisted. Researching, writing, attending court hearings on the criminal accusations arising out of the scandalous, corrupt sale of B.C. Rail by the Gordon Campbell cabinet, I have been forced to ask myself alarming questions. The questions arise, remember, from actions that place in serious doubt the competence, the moral qualification, and the legal propriety of the Gordon Campbell government. In short, the questions point to a major question: would the Gordon Campbell government at this moment, if all information was available, be proved to be illegitimately in office? Here are a few of the alarming questions. Was the Special Crown Prosecutor chosen impartially? Was the RCMP ordered (by whom?) to restrict investigations and to protect cabinet ministers? Was the RCMP instructed to limit the number of people against whom charges were laid to the three lower level cabinet aides? Did the RCMP “connect” to top political figures and communicate investigative information to them? Is “the Crown”, and is the RCMP, and is the Gordon Campbell cabinet deliberately impeding the conduct of the process leading to trial? Have judges connected to the scandal unnecessarily withheld information on the public record from the public? And if so, why? Has Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett, presiding judge, competently and forcefully asserted the needs of justice in the matter? Has Madam Justice Elisabeth Bennett permitted slovenly reporting of evidence, unnecessary delay, inadequate framing of charges and an inadequate range of investigation? Those questions should not have arisen. The fact that they can be asked at all throws a dark pall over “the conduct of justice” in what is probably the most important legal matter in B.C. history in decades. Notice that the questions focus on the B.C. cabinet, the B.C. Supreme Court, the RCMP, the legal profession – key forces and institutions Canadians refer to when they speak of “public responsibility”. William Berardino will be seeking, on December 3, an in camera hearing in order to ask that (secret?) witnesses in the court action arising out of the scandalous and corrupt sale of B.C. Rail by the B.C. cabinet of Gordon Campbell may give their testimony in camera (meaning, literally, “in secret”). In order to fight what I believe is an offensive and unprecedented attempt to reshape the meaning of justice and equality before the law in B.C. and Canada, I have written the following letter to Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett, judge of the Supreme Court of B.C. 520 Salsbury Drive, Vancouver, B.C., V5L 3Z7, November 27, 2007 Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett, The Law Courts, 800 Smithe Street, Vancouver, B.C., V6Z 2E1 cc. Chief Justice, B. McLaughlin, Supreme Court of Canada; Joe Comartin MP; Marlene Jennings MP; Leonard Krog MLA; B.C. Civil Liberties Assoc.; William Berardino QC; Michael Bolton QC; Joseph Doyle; Kevin McCullough; Press/Media; others Dear Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett: William Berardino, Special Crown Prosecutor in the Basi, Virk, and Basi matters, announced to you, in courtroom 55, on November 23, 2007, that he will bring before you on December 3 a request to have witnesses (secret witnesses?) appear in camera to give their testimony. The meaning of the Latin phrase “in camera” in English is “in secret”. Since the intent of what we call “courts” and “trials” is to conduct the important legal business of the community before public representatives in open tribunals, a request for processes held “in secret” offends fundamental democratic transactions and freedoms. The accusations against Basi, Virk, and Basi are criminal accusations. That means the wrong-doings alleged against them and whatever treatment they may receive are of interest and significance to all Canadians; and so “the Crown”, in effect, is the prosecutor, acting for all Canadians. Neither the Prosecution nor the Defence nor the judge presiding can pretend that Canadians in general are anything but profoundly interested parties in the case. What is more, the charges brought against Basi, Virk, and Basi have arisen out of the scandalous and corrupt sale of B.C. Rail by the Gordon Campbell cabinet in which the three accused men acted as aides to cabinet ministers who are necessarily and by constitutional convention responsible for all decisions made on the B.C. Rail matter by cabinet. That means every word uttered in your court on the Basi, Virk, and Basi matter is political. It cannot be anything else than political. You, yourself, cannot utter a word in the Basi, Virk, and Basi matter that is not political. But “political” is not necessarily “partisan”. The core of the question, then, is whether words and actions by you, the Special Crown Prosecutor, or Defence counsel are partisan words and actions? In short, are any of you acting or speaking on behalf of the Gordon Campbell cabinet, the Opposition in the B.C. legislature, or some other political or corporate interest group with goals other than the goal of justice? Suspicions of partisanship in the matters involved in the accusations against Basi, Virk, and Basi - as you must know – are rampant; and you, yourself, are not, I must say with respect and regret, excluded from the suspicions. The request by the Special Crown Prosecutor feeds directly into deeply unfortunate suspicions. I have decided – all of those matters considered carefully – to present to you by means of this letter FORMAL REQUEST to appear, with full and equal status, in your court on December 3 to argue against the request (or application) by Special Crown Prosecutor William Berardino to gain your consent to hear in secret (in camera) certain witnesses appearing in the criminal fraud and breach of trust trial of Basi, Virk, and Basi. I wish to be present in the court. I wish to argue – as Prosecution and Defence are given opportunity to argue. And I wish to argue as an ordinary Canadian – not one representing and defending the accused or prosecuting the accused. What I am asking is, of course, “political” because I am deeply concerned about the state of political freedoms in Canada. The Berardino request constitutes, I believe, an attempt to gain extraordinary treatment that would, if granted, erase certain Canadian political freedoms. Your response will necessarily be “political” because it will be concerned with Canadian political freedoms. You must take the greatest care that your response is not (and is not “seen to be”) partisan. You must take special care not to be “believed” to be serving the interests of the Gordon Campbell cabinet or any other institutionalized partisan force in the Province rather than to be serving justice. I do not want to be instructed to “hire a lawyer”. I do not want to be told about forms to fill out, depositions to prepare, or … other. I am making, with deepest respect, a simple, straightforward request requiring a simple, straightforward reply. Respectfully, Robin Mathews [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on November 28, 2007]