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Do not go gently into that good
night, Rage, rage against the dying of
the light — Dylan Thomas.
This is hot off the presses, as it
were. The B.C. Appeal Court has just
decided, in its wisdom, that I cannot
have a judicial review of this province’s
outrageous heresy laws without first
going back to the B.C. Human Rights
Tribunal that censored and fined me. It
should then consider whether what it did
was constitutional!
Confusing. So here’s some
background.
In 1998 the tribunal heard a
complaint against me from a Jew in
Victoria by the name of Harry Abrams of
B’Nai Brith. In his view, four columns
of mine hurt his feelings and
contravened the Human Rights Code in
that they were “likely” to bring him
and his brethren into “hatred and
contempt.” Not that they had actually
done so. As far as he personally was
concerned he hadn’t even been
mentioned in them. But “likely” was
the operative word.
Anything or nothing is “likely”,
of course. In the U.S.S.R., kulaks could
be sent to concentration camps because
they were “likely” to be hostile to
Stalin. Here in the Socialist Republic
of British Columbia we haven't yet got
the camps but the principles of
suspicion are the same.
Your man Doug and the newspaper for
which he worked were found guilty.
Abrams was awarded $2,000 for his
allegedly hurt feelings and the
newspaper was told to run the decision
in full, which was an infringement of
freedom of the press. Even the regular
courts cannot make such a ruling.
Also strange was that although the
tribunal found that, taken individually,
the columns in question were not in
breach of the misnamed Code,
collectively they were. A real head-scratcher,
that, but we are now living in a strange
world.
Lawyer Doug Christie offered to act
for me, and I briefed him to go for a
judicial review of the Code. If
successful, such a review would render
the offending portions of the law null
and void, which is a consummation
devoutly to be desired, B.C.’s rights
to free expression having been removed.
And not since Confederation has a writer
been forced before a
government-appointed tribunal to defend
an opinion column.
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A
B.C. Supreme Court judge denied the
application for a review on the grounds
that we should first go back to the
tribunal so that it could “finish its
task” and consider whether it had
acted constitutionally. We went to the
Appeal Court in the hope of getting that
judgment overturned.
As stated, the application was
denied.This in spite of the fact that in
a previous human rights case, the issue
did go directly to court. But it was
clear to me after the first hour of the
hearing that the appeal judges would
rule against us. Body language and
attitudes conveyed the message.
Our morally corrupt government,
pulled out all the stops. The lawyer for
the attorney general of the province was
on parade, as were lawyers for the Human
Rights Commission and the Human Rights
Tribunal. Why? Because Premier Ujjal
Dozanjh & Co are desperate to
prevent their law from being scrutinized
by the judiciary.
Mr. Christie made a magnificent case
for justice and common sense. But laws
are one thing and justice is another.
The government side, meanwhile, provided
arguments incomprehensible to ordinary
mortals.
What now? Fight on, that’s what. No
doubt the government hopes that because
of my age I’ll kick the bucket before
long. But as that old Scot Sir Andrew
Barttron said, “I am hurt but I am not
slain. I’ll lay me down and bleed
awhile, and then I’ll fight again.”
In short, I’ll take myself back to the
tribunal and ask it whether what it did
was constitutional. I’ll do so without
a lawyer because while the government
has limitless funds, our side does not.
It is also obvious that, lawyer or no
lawyer, the tribunal’s answer is
certain. It would be news indeed if it
ruled against itself.
Once the tribunal has determined that
it is without fault, we’ll use the
limited funds at our disposal to get
that judicial review, and trust that we
can beat both B’Nai Brith and the Evil
Empire of the Republic of British
Columbia. After all, neither the
validity of this socialist Code nor the
merits of this case have yet been tested
in court.
Dylan Thomas said it all in two
lines. And as a lesser wordsmith put it,
“It ain’t over till it’s over.” |
