For The Rich And Powerful, "Law" (?) For The Others, "Contempt&Qu

Very clearly the more than 40 people who lodged the Complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council were complaining of the conduct of Madam Justice Brenda Brown. They wrote: “Our complaint concerns the treatment by Madam Justice Brenda Brown of a Native protester, Harriet Nahanee-Tseboilt (hereafter named Harriett Nahanee) whom Madam Justice Brenda Brown caused to be incarcerated in a detention place known to be unsuitable after being directly informed of the Native woman’s age and perilous ill-health. After some days imprisonment in what was described in court to Madam Justice Brown as a “hell hole”, Harriett Nahanee had to be rushed to hospital with life-threatening illness from which she died”. In fact, Justice Brown sentenced Harriett Nahanee to an apparently nasty jail. She was informed of Nahanee’s perilous condition and asked to conduct herself differently – to retain the sentence, the decision that Nahanee was in Contempt of Court if she wished, but to have her live out that sentence in a form and in a place from which she might come out alive. Brown was asked to conduct herself differently than she did in the matter. The reply from Norman Sabourin on behalf of the CJC reported that we were not complaining of the conduct of Justice Brown. But (stupid, ordinary people that we are), we were, according to Associate Chief Justice Robert Pidgeon of the Superior Court of Quebec, complaining about the sentence, the decision of Justice Brown. And so… And so, of course, the Canadian Judicial Council couldn’t possibly look at our Complaint. Smoke and mirrors. Hide and seek. Prestidigitation. At no place in his letter, by the way, did Norman Sabourin acknowledge the Complaint came from a large number of people. He addressed me and MY Complaint. I wrote back a stern letter, requesting that another judge review the matter and that it be reopened as a Complaint against the conduct of Madam Justice Brenda Brown, as it was intended. I made clear I thought the matter had been wrongly dealt with. Without consulting me in any way, Robert Sabourin – for the Canadian Judicial Council - wrote to me to say: “I will be treating your correspondence as a complaint against Senior Associate Chief Justice Robert Pidgeon of the Superior Court of Quebec” (May 25, 07). Pardon? I didn’t ask that. I suggest Norman Sabourin is treating me and all the people who joined in the original complaint with open contempt. Poor us. Too stupid for words. I asked the Complaint be reopened and examined afresh. I did not ask to file a Complaint against Robert Pidgeon. Smoke and mirrors. Hide and seek. Prestidigitation. By dealing with a Complaint I never made, the Canadian Judicial Council can avoid facing the conduct complained of: Madam Justice Brenda Brown’s conduct when asked to consider the age and illness of Harriett Nahanee. The protesters in West Vancouver were preventing a U.S. Corporation from stripping Eagle Ridge bluffs of their park-beautiful forestation. For that, the protesters had Private Corporate and B.C. Supreme Court boots taken to them. Monika Sheardown wrote: “As this case continues, our judicial system is [becoming] an increasing embarrassment to British Columbia and to Canada.” Mark that down. Krawczyk made an application for release pending appeal. She is conducting her own defence. The application was dismissed by Chief Justice Finch (June 12 07) who (in legal language) suggests her appeal against conviction is frivolous and that her continued detention (O! dangerous 78 year old) is in the public interest. (But not, it seems, of interest enough to have been noted by the major Vancouver papers, as far as I could determine. Vancouver’s major papers try hard not to embarrass wealth and power.) Did Chief Justice Finch request the prison authorities to deliver Betty Krawczyk to his “chambers” to be heard on her application and to hear his judgement? Did he wish justice to be done and be seen to be done? Did he consider that someone without a lawyer, an elderly woman, might need the enabling hand of the court to demonstrate that someone without money to hire a lawyer is still a human being requiring dignity and consideration? Did he ask that the elderly woman be brought from prison to stand before him? Of course not. In Finch’s “chambers” a lawyer for the Crown (for Madam Justice Brenda Brown, in fact), paid for by you and me (as Brenda Brown is) argued that Betty Krawczyk should stay in jail and should not be allowed out the better to prepare her appeal. Betty Krawczyk was not there, not permitted to be there. Is she for Chief Justice Finch a nonentity, not a human being? It would seem so, wouldn’t it? Could that be considered “contempt from the court”? Chief Justice Finch – in responding to and dismissing Betty Krawczyk’s application – did not question the use of criminal contempt proceedings against her and other citizens of British Columbia when perfectly suitable infractions already exist in the Criminal Code to use. Criminal Contempt proceedings give the judges huge power to act as tinpot gods – a role to which Madam Justice Brenda Brown seems strongly drawn. In the case of a body of decent, concerned, responsible Canadians protesting against the Private Corporate rape of our society, the Supreme Court – embarrassingly linked – many believe - to the corrupt Campbell government and the big private corporations - fell upon those Canadians swiftly, heavily, and with the contemptuous attitude Chief Justice Finch has just shown to Betty Krawczyk by excluding her from the hearing of her own application for release. But look – look at another case, the case surrounding the huge Gordon Campbell dirty sell-out of publicly owned B.C. Rail, called the criminal case against Dave Basi, Bobby Virk, and Aneal Basi for kinds of fraud and breach of trust. Look at the farrago, going on now. It is a case in which the rich and powerful can be spied just off stage at every turn of events. (Are the rich and powerful being especially protected, kept off the stage, do you suppose?) It is a case in which many reasonable and prudent people have almost no doubt that the RCMP has been obstructing, that the Special Crown Prosecutor may have been – to use a generous expression – lax in pursuing his duties. It is a case in which it is possible there has been collusion between RCMP and Gordon Campbell cabinet members. Has there been collusion with the Crown? Very serious matters. Very, very serious matters! What has been the result? The case in which charges were laid in 2004 is still, in 2007, stumbling and falling and inching and dodging and hesitating towards (what may not eventuate in) a trial. More and more people are becoming convinced the wrong men are named as “the accused”. In fact, a continuing theme of the Defence argument is that others are the instigators of wrong-doing; and, of course, the others appear nowhere in the charges. Goaded and prodded and begged by the Defence, the judge presiding showed she knows hijinks are the order of the day in the case. After three years she made an order the other day (June 4 07) that all RCMP officers and others involved with investigations “forthwith” search all their records and deliver up anything to do with the Basi, Virk, and Basi case. Three years after charges were laid! Four years after the search warrant “raids” on legislature offices in Victoria! Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett shows she knows that what reasonable Canadians, using ordinary language, would call ‘contempt of court’ has almost certainly been shown by RCMP officers, by the Crown, probably by members of Gordon Campbell’s cabinet who played and play various roles in the matter stretching, now, THROUGH FOUR YEARS since the search warrant “raids” on legislature offices. Even so, when she “ordered” all RCMP officers and others involved in the Basi, Virk, and Basi investigations to deliver up all relevant papers, she didn’t set a time limit, and she didn’t say “if they do not do so, or are found later not to have done so, I will cite them with Criminal Contempt of Court and I will fall on them far more heavily than Madam Justice Brenda Brown fell on the environmental protesters, Harriett Nahanee and Betty Krawczyk.” Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett is willing to write: “There has been a substantial failure to respect the disclosure rights of the accused.” But four years after the search warrant “raids” on B.C. legislature offices, she finds herself able to write: “The issues of good faith and bad faith have not been addressed and I will not comment on the process in this regard.” (page 11) In this case the threat and then, if necessary, the imposition of Criminal Contempt charges against clearly obstructive and manipulating entities is much, much more reasonable than in the case of the Eagle Ridge bluffs environmental protesters. (And would have been reasonable many months ago.) Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett did not say “I am sending this order to the top RCMP officer in B.C. to deliver to every RCMP officer in the Province and he will prove to me he has done so within X days.” Nothing like that. Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett, you see, is living in the world in which there is “for the rich and powerful, ‘Law’ (?) . For the others, contempt from the court”. The law for the rich and powerful requires that they are never strongly challenged, never embarrassed, never called upon to respect the rules of society, never (if possible) confronted with their wrong doing. That, in itself, shows contempt from the court for all the others in society. But let those others actually approach the Bench; let them ask that justice be done; that they be treated with respect as human beings. Then observe the contempt from the court as we have observed it with Harriett Nahanee, and now with Betty Krawczyk. And - I am afraid - we have to ask if we are also forced to witness contempt from the court in both the sluggish, almost comatose pace with which Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett is guiding the B.C. Rail proceeding and in her insistence that she still will not ask if bad faith is present – but will carry on as if she is in a situation in which nice people just keep making mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake in a case of enormous importance to all British Columbians, especially to the ordinary people of British Columbia. What was it Monika Sheardown wrote? Ah yes: “…our judicial system is [becoming] an increasing embarrassment to British Columbia and to Canada”. Mark that down. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 18, 2007]