Captive in Canada

Injustice in Canada (6)

2-dec-07

6. The Right to Bail and Prevention of Freedom

Since the time of the media trial of the “presumed innocents”, it became obvious to the families, lawyers and those who have knowledge about government tactics, where this case is heading. For example: ban on publication; ban on the communication between the accused; constant violation of lawyer-client privilege to privacy; media keeping the image of danger and spreading fear; locking up the accused in solitary confinement to heighten the terrorism profile. These are typical steps to confine the truth, hide the evidence, and keep the “presumed innocent” locked up as long as they can.

As stated by J. Vinson (in Review article cited below) bail is “a traditional right of freedom before conviction’, which “permits the unhampered preparation of defense, and serves to prevent the inflection of punishment before conviction”.¹

When the bail hearings started with some hope that the law will be applied equally to every body, with no double standard, the “inflection of punishment before conviction” was the primary goal of the prosecution. The hearings were held in the Brampton court house. The show of force at the court room was quite surprising as guards with heavy weapons were standing inside and outside. The goal was to intimidate the Judges, who, by the way, were “Justices of Peace” (a lower level judge), and promote fear in the general public of letting anyone out on bail. Judges are humans, and they get influenced by the media and the shows put up by the government. With the publication ban in place, the chance completely disappeared of getting any of these young men out on bail, no matter what bail conditions might be offered, with the exception of one of the accused who got bail with the consent of the prosecutor under undisclosed circumstances.  Having the publication ban prevented the other accused from using the same argument, or, at least, know the grounds on which this agreement was reached.

Hope faded away from the accused and their families of getting, not only a bail, but a fair trial. A fair trial requires an untainted Judge and juries; something that the media had made sure will not exist for this trial. In the first year, bail hearings were conducted one after the other, with a “No” verdict every time, no matter how strong the evidence of the defense and how weak the evidence of the prosecution. The reason of denying the bail can not be stated here as it would be against the ‘Law” of the publication ban! The result was that these accused were denied their right to freedom until courts say its word, and were also denied talking about the reason for their denial. They are simply powerless victims of a system that creates laws under the umbrella of Justice to “legally” apply injustice. A terrible twist of democracy toward dictatorship and the application of the laws of the jungle were in the works, by the right wing fanatics of the New Con government of the conservative party.

To be continued

FOOTNOTE
1. Review of “The Law of Bail In Canada” Gary Trittor, by Nicola Padfield, The University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 911-916

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December 2nd, 2007 Opinions | no comments | Email it! |  Print This Post | 192 views