Police not stopping aboriginal rail blockades leads to ‘dangerous waters’
By Allison Jones - Monday, January 7, 2013 - 0 Comments
TORONTO – An Ontario judge who has issued two injunctions to end blockades of…
TORONTO – An Ontario judge who has issued two injunctions to end blockades of critical rail arteries is slamming police for not ending the aboriginal protests, saying their inaction leads to “dangerous waters.”
A small group of protesters blocked the railway Saturday afternoon near Kingston, Ont., affecting freight and passenger train service between Toronto and Montreal, and CN Rail (TSX:CNR) went to court Saturday night for an injunction.
Ontario Superior Court Justice David Brown ordered them to leave by 12:01 a.m. Sunday and they left the site about then anyway, but as Brown noted in his reasons for the injunction, released Monday, it wasn’t because police enforced the order. Continue…
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Convicted Hells Angels to get seized ‘death head’ stuff back, judge rules
By The Canadian Press - Monday, December 3, 2012 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments
TORONTO – The Ontario government must return a raft of seized items bearing the…
TORONTO – The Ontario government must return a raft of seized items bearing the Hells Angels’ ‘death head’ insignia to the bikers, an Ontario judge has ruled in a decision welcomed as important for property rights.
The judge made her ruling because she found there was no relation between criminal acts committed by club members and the paraphernalia, which includes black leather vests, belt buckles, gold and diamond jewelry, and other clothing bearing the logo.
“While membership in the club was clearly used to commit the offences, membership cannot be equated with the symbols of membership,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Maureen Forestell said in her judgment.
“There was a rule that members were not permitted to wear (the Hells Angels) insignia when committing offences.”
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Harper v. The Judges
By Andrew Stobo Sniderman - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at 5:00 AM - 0 Comments
The biggest issues facing the country are being tackled not by Parliament, but in court
Sean Kilpatrick/CP
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called it “essential.” The judge called it “fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable.” They were both speaking about mandatory minimum jail times for gun-related crimes—Harper when touting the law requiring them, and Justice Anne Molloy of the Ontario Superior Court when she struck it down by uttering the fateful word: unconstitutional.
Harper’s mandatory minimum sentences, presented as evidence of his toughness on crime, are under judicial fire. In February, a man faced three years in jail under the 2008 law, for momentarily posing with his cousin’s illegal gun for a Facebook picture. Justice Molloy called the legislated punishment of automatic jail time “cruel” and “disproportionate.” In July, another accused faced three years for offering to sell a gun he didn’t even possess. In that case Justice Paul Bellefontaine of the Ontario Court of Justice refused to apply the sanction prescribed by law, citing Molloy’s reasoning. Many expect one of these decisions to wind its way up to the Supreme Court, where the Harper government’s crime law will officially go on trial.
The NDP enjoys the title of official Opposition in a time of majority government, but it would seem the Conservatives’ real opponents wear robes and issue decrees. In addition to the rulings on mandatory minimum sentences, judges have delivered the Tories a series of stinging defeats of late. And it’s becoming apparent that in the next few years some of the country’s biggest and most consequential debates, around issues as diverse as euthanasia, refugee detention and brothels, will be fought not in Parliament, but in the courts.
