Tuesday March 29, 2016
This was a difficult day to get through. A full court day of mind-numbing stupidity. So stupid and pointless that, at the end of the day, I did something I rarely do. I had a beer. OK, I hear it now, all of my readers calling bullshit on that. The way that sad pathetic drunk talks he never does anything but guzzle beer. True enough but, apart from home, say right now as I'm writing this, or when I'm travelling, I'm not a solitary drinker. I very rarely go to a pub by myself and have a beer. But I did at the end of this court day. I headed right over to The Moose, a short block away from the courthouse, and had a Honker's Ale. I desreved it. And, while I'm working on this entry, I'm having a Free Dollar saison brewed by Machine Ales at Callister brewing;
http://www.callisterbrewing.com/
Lawson spent the entire day yammering on and on about his grievances, complaints, and endless accusations against the criminal, malicious activities of the Crown that had so tainted his case that the only remedy that fundamental justice allowed was to throw out all of the charges against him. What had the perfidious Crown done? They'd styled the Supreme Court of British Columbia as the
SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA. Those bastards!
This is an argument that he has lost in at least three prior hearings. It's like the Supreme Court of British Columbia has nothing else to do but let him have his own personal Groundhog Day over and over. Apparently
res judicata doesn't exist for the SCBC. He'll lose this one too but why did we have to hear it in the first place?
I've been stalling on taking that first look at my notes but I may as well get started.
Court started with only Michael Millar, his wife, and me in the public seating. Huge courtroom. A jury room with 78 public seats, six rows which are, rather ominously thirteen seats across. The same judge that we couldn't find on March 16th. This session was for an application that Lawson made in respect to the court's jurisdiction. When we started the usual gibberish from Lawson. I'm a private person here on a conditional special appearance, Keith David, family name Lawson. Much of the day was spent with Lawson trying to get the judge to rule that he was actually a private person. Why? Because, in his terminology, a private person is also a natural person and the Porisky/Paradigm argument is that natural persons aren't taxable. Porisky, and his followers were convicted partly on the basis that the courts refuse to accept that natural persons exist for income tax purposes. So if Lawson and Millar managed to get the court to rule that they are natural/private persons then they open up a whole special status for themselves that they can argue as a matter of law at their trials.
The judge said that she had a five page amended unfiled notice of application from Lawson. Lawson had also files a huge pile of other material including what looked like a massive Book of Authority. This is a file with the cases you plan to rely on at a court hearing as precedence for your arguments. The trick is finding relevant precedences. A trick freemen have trouble mastering.
Lawson started first. I thought this was a two day hearing but turns out it is only one. Almost the first thing Lawson did in the last two hearings I attended was get me banned from reporting. This time he didn't bother.
He started by going on about what an inexperienced helpless unrepresented individual he was and how he needed massive amounts of help from the judge. He had a quote from a case. R. v Stevenson I think, that told him that the judge essentially had to act as his lawyer if he didn't have one. The case name is too generic for me to bother looking for it.
He said that the basis of his application was what he'd read and understood of the Constitution and the administration of justice. He wanted adherence to the last one by all parties. But the failures and irregularities of the process against him had gone too far. "A failure to answer the questions I'm going to ask is a proof of malicious intent, fraud and willful blindness by the persecution. I'm only pointing this out in support of moral and spiritual values and the rule of law. This is a simple issue and it shouldn't even have to be brought up".
'I have a simple question about the variations in the documents submitted. I'm the applicant, a private person. There should be no reason to obfuscate. I want the court to order the prosecution to answer if I'm a private person. If they refuse I want the court to make an order that I'm a private person."
"The British Columbia Supreme Court's authority is from the Supreme Court Act. There should be no reason to ask but is this the Supreme Court of British Columbia?" Apparently Lawson had sent the Crown a letter with three questions he wanted answered and they hadn't replied. So the first court order that should be made is that he is a private person being prosecuted in his private capacity.
He brought up purported examples where the law recognized that he was a private person. However he did not show any legislation supporting this argument but instead went to some publication by a law society that talked about natural persons.
He's very upset with the disrespect he's getting from the Crown because of their disparaging comments about his natural person arguments. "The Crown's response shows a lack of respect for me not in line with professional conduct". Then he pulled out the old freeman standby, old law dictionaries, something about individuals from the century before last. Then he said "A natural person is not something that a deranged person came up with so the Crown's disparagement of private and natural persons is offensive." While Lawson was going through this I wrote in the margin of my notebook "Lawson festering with resentment against lack of respect from the Crown." I should note at this point that this lack of respect and the Crown's failure to meet their required professional conduct seems to be based almost solely on the fact that they won't agree with him and hop to it when he demands they answer questions.
Then on to another freeman standby, masses and masses of irrelevant citations from statutes and legal dictionaries. On to Blackstone now. "There is no reason for you not to grant an order that I'm a private person. I want an order now before I continue. I want to know if the Crown objects to an order. This is fundamental so I want it now." Judge asked "You want the Crown to agree that you are a private person?" "Yes, private person or natural person. Yes, I want the Crown to admit that or you make an order." So judge asked Crown counsel for her views.
Crown - "All issues are intertwined but the basis of everything hinges on his status or capacity as a private person. This has been dealt with twice and there is no reason to reopen it again."
Sadly I have to report that, at this point, the Crown's arguments are nothing but gibberish. Not the actual arguments Crown made but but my notes of them. I have three lines covering the Crown's next point and all I can interpret from it is "Cited authority" in respect to something or another. No idea what I meant.
Anyhow Lawson popped up and said that he wanted to respond. He then went on again about his grievances against the Crown. "Is there evidence before the court that I'm not a private person?" Judge said "Good question." Lawson went on about fairness and fundamental justice not being met.
Back to Lawson's arguments again. "The next question I want to ask the Crown is this matter proceeding in the Vancouver - New Westminster judicial district and the county of Vancouver? A prior judge had said "As far as I can determine there is no authority for more than one Supreme Court in British Columbia." Then he was back to styling. Styling is more specific than just words it includes cases. The Canadian Styling Guide proves that the capitalization styling used is critical. Letters and style have meaning. The guide says that you capitalize only the first letters of proper nouns.
At some point he'd mentioned that the styling guide he was going on and on about was a government publication so I assume he means this;
https://books.google.ca/books/about/The ... sc=y&hl=en
It is a 312 page book covering all aspects of written styling and published by the Public Works and Government Services Translation Bureau. It is described as;
The revised edition of The Canadian Style is an indispensable language guide for editors, copywriters, students, teachers, lawyers, journalists, secretaries and business people – in fact, anyone writing in the English language in Canada today.
It provides concise, up-to-date answers to a host of questions on abbreviations, hyphenation, spelling, the use of capital letters, punctuation and frequently misused or confused words. It deals with letter, memo and report formats, notes, indexes and bibliographies, and geographical names.
If you are interested you can buy it on Amazon;
https://www.amazon.ca/Canadian-Public-G ... dian+Style
So, as I understand Lawson's (and Millar's) arguments, all documents that the Crown prepares for the court or for him must follow precisely all of the rules laid out in Canadian Style. Any error or deviation from perfect adherence to the guide, no matter how minor, constitutes grounds to quash the charges against him. Such errors are not accidental but are a deliberate fraud by the Crown and violate his right to fundamental justice. So if the rules on capitalization proposed by the guide are not followed by the Crown, say by heading a document THE SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA rather than The Supreme Court of British Columbia, then the name on the document does not match the guide's rules and therefore does not designate a valid court.
Back to Lawson. He gave a long review of the styling guide. It is used by churches, universities, courts of law. He cited that golden piece of legislation that would free him, Section 2 of the Supreme Court Act;
2(1) The Supreme Court of British Columbia is continued under the name and style of the "Supreme Court of British Columbia".
Capitalizing the first letter of every word is a styling rule because it is a proper noun. Putting the name of the court in quotation marks must have been done for a reason so the Crown must use this styling exactly. Names have meanings. "I don't have a duty to know these things, I'm just one guy acting alone." Judge - "Are you saying that the name SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA is misleading on documents?" "Yes, the numerous examples in the filings show that the Crown is being evasive."
Then back to his list of questions that had to be answered by the Crown or put in a court order by the judge if he was to have justice. I'm not sure if I got the whole list.
1 - Private person
2 - Court name styling. Is this matter proceeding in the Supreme Court of British Columbia?
3 - Not a question. "Special Appearance is not something I made up." Chief Justice Cullen told me all about it.
Lawson is not a linear guy. More like a dog gnawing a bone. He stops for a while then starts gnawing at the same part again. Back yet again to styling and the judicial districts and judicial counties argument he's previously lost. He started citing from some 1936 book about some common law topic he said was worth discussing. He said he didn't intent to challenge the jurisdiction of the real Supreme Court of British Columbia but just this upper case court because upper case courts are not in the Supreme Court Act. "The Crown's documents state a place not known in law." Then the plaintive cry "I can't tell from the documents if this place is known in law!" Turns out that there is not a single document in all of the filings that defines the judicial district we are in because they are all in upper case and the Supreme Court Act uses mixed case.
"There is no reason for you to fail to make an order confirming that this proper name and styling is not in any of the Crown's documents. It's not fair that I have to assume that this is the correct court. My affidavit shows that I've suffered for years so I've already been prejudiced." Then, mercifully, morning break. All of the preceding was in just over an hour.
After break he went into the preliminary inquiry transcripts. This was a hearing that Lawson went to when his prosecution was shifted from the Provincial Court of British Columbia to the purported Supreme Court of British Columbia.
The purpose of the preliminary inquiry is to determine if there is sufficient evidence to set the matter down for trial before a Justice of the Superior Court. In practice the Inquiry is used to test the strength of the Crown's case.
The judge asked "Give me context, why is this relevant?" Jurisdiction, why else. The judge in the preliminary inquiry apparently changed the styling on the documents when Lawson demanded it and that proved his case. CANADA changed to Canada, PROVINCIAL COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA to Provincial Court of British Columbia. However when the case was transferred to the improperly Styled SUPREME COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA the courts lost jurisdiction over him. The Smoking gun! The new documents in this court do not reflect the changes. Judge - "How does this advance your argument in this court?" Jurisdiction of course! Changes were brought up in provincial court and documents amended but Crown refuses to amend here. Apparently the provincial court changed his name to reflect his status as a private person but this court won't do it. I assume that he means that the provincial court used upper and lower case. Lawson showed a bunch of prescribed forms with all capitals in some of the wording of Canada and the Province of British Columbia. He ran through a laundry list of other claimed defects in the forms.
I've now done six of the fourteen pages of notes for the one day. Lawson was relentless in his overwhelming repetition. There's a lot more yet.
He pointed out where he was identified as Keith David Lawson in the City of Burnaby in the Province of British Columbia. Since the first letter of "city" was capitalized that meant the document referred to a corporation and this took him out of the jurisdiction of the court because the court only has jurisdiction over places. Back to style guide then;
Judge - "This is not the law. Not conforming to a style guide is not a mistake in law."
Lawson - "It gives the rules."
Judge - "These are not rules and there are no consequences to not following it. The style guide is not an enactment or legislation, it is just a guide. You are saying that it should have consequences to not following it but if this is in your argument show me your authority."
She might as well have been talking to the hummingbird feeder in my back yard. Lawson stopped for a moment, said OK or something similar, then said "I want an order that all of these mistakes be corrected. Page 78 of the style guide about geographic terms says "Do not capitalize city unless used in a corporate sense" so a city is not a place but a corporation."
Then a change of topic! Marginally. Not a new topic but first reference today. The Porisky search warrant. Sorry, not a change at all. Apparently the warrant used to authorize the Porisky search was not valid because the information in it made the styling guide unhappy. Something about Canada, British Columbia and the Pacific Region being styled wrong.
The Pacific Region was a new term at trial that Lawson professed to know nothing about. "I couldn't find a statutory reference to a judicial area called the Pacific Region." Burnaby49 knows all about the Pacific Region because he worked in it for over thirty years. It is just and administrative term used by the Canada Revenue Agency for British Columbia and the Yukon. The CRA has divided Canada up into semi-autonomous regions for administration purposes so I worked in the Vancouver Tax Service Office in the Pacific Region. There are various regions across the country, Prairie Region, Maritime Region. Each region has it's own separate administrative structure with a regional headquarters that reports to Ottawa. Since regions are just internal CRA administrative designations which have no statutory authority they are totally irrelevant to Lawson's argument. He didn't care because he had so much other evidence that would get his case quashed.
One of the auditors who had prepared, or helped prepare, the warrant had stated on it that he (the auditor) lived in the City of Surrey in the Province of British Columbia. Did he live in a corporation or a place? The style guide says that he lives in a corporation. Places are essential to the court's jurisdiction and I can't find any in the documents. Then back to other glaring defects in the search warrant. Apparently Canada had been styled as C A N A D A, PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (spaces in original). It was clear that the warrant had failed to meet the rules of the styling guide and was therefore invalid. But the preliminary inquiry wouldn't address the issue.
He mentioned some provision of law that court jurisdiction is lost if prescribed forms aren't followed correctly. He'd read it somewhere but, very unfortunately, he didn't remember where. Absolute proof that he's right and he just lost track of it. "Check out the forms judge, there is no consistency. Why didn't the Crown follow the styling guide?" He knew the answer to that question; the failure was motivated by fraud and malicious intent on the part of Crown counsel! Then another issue that required that charges be quashed. The Court seal affixed on some documents by the registrar did not fit the requirements of section 7 of the Supreme Court Act. Section 7 says;
7 (1) The court must have a seal bearing Her Majesty's Royal Arms and the name "Supreme Court of British Columbia" and other words the Attorney General considers necessary.
(2) The seal is to be used by the court as the occasion requires.
(3) A print of the seal stamped on a document requiring a seal of the court is, for all purposes, deemed to be an impression of the seal of the court.
We all know where this is going.
Judge asked "Are you arguing that the seal is invalid because it is all in upper case?" Yes. Then a ten minute laundry-list of capitalization defects in the forms and documents going back years. "If this isn't fraudulent why did the Crown do it? Only the Crown can answer. I'm not willing to accept a fraudulent change of jurisdiction, the guide was ignored on purpose. I can't understand the meaning of the words in the documents. Are these real places or are the names concealed? Concealment is a hallmark of fraud!"
Then on to how the Canadian Armed Forces name vessels and military exercises. Apparently they use full capitalization but since this court isn't military the proceedings are fraudulent. (I have no idea what he meant by that and he didn't expand on it). Then he said that section 25(1) of the Criminal Code covers private persons. My notes say that at this point Lawson was just babbling about fraud and malicious actions so we'll break for 25(1). This is what it says;
Protection of Persons Administering and Enforcing the Law
· 25 (1) Every one who is required or authorized by law to do anything in the administration or enforcement of the law
·
o (a) as a private person,
o (b) as a peace officer or public officer,
o (c) in aid of a peace officer or public officer, or
o (d) by virtue of his office,
o
is, if he acts on reasonable grounds, justified in doing what he is required or authorized to do and in using as much force as is necessary for that purpose.
Now I'd agree that it uses the words "private person" but the context has nothing to do with Lawson. Not that that matters to him. He's in love with masses of paper. Volume gives credibility.
He also said that the Criminal Code uses the words "Territorial Division" in respect to jurisdiction but the term Territorial Division is not in any of the forms.
Judge - Does the Supreme Court Act use Territorial Division?
Lawson - No, it only uses Jurisdictional Divisions.
Judge - The words are a term of art to be applied province by province as they wish. There is context in wording. If the Supreme Court Act used "Territorial Division" then it is relevant.
Lawson - No, that's my point! The Criminal Code uses it but British Columbia doesn't.
As I said, it was like talking to my bird feeder. Anyhow, finally, lunchtime.
After lunch judge said that if we need more time we can use part of Friday (today Tuesday). Apparently there is a scheduled pre-trial conference and part of that day could be used to conclude this hearing. Happily I won't be there, a dental appointment Friday Morning. So judge asked Lawson if he needed more time. "Don't know, haven't thought about it." Given his performance today, with about 95% repetition, he could fill any time slot allotted. Anyhow he and judge agreed to see how it went this afternoon
Back to Criminal Code provisions. "If we are assured that this is the correct court then the case can go to trial (a generous concession on his part) but there are still issues of failure to properly state a place, and misleading style to conceal that provisions of the Criminal Court are not met." Then yet more going through documents, seemingly at random by just rummaging through the pile in front of him, pointing out capitalization issues that showed that his right to justice hadn't been met.
He said that he was the "person who, on the face of it, appeared to be the defendant in the preliminary inquiry but is not the same defendant in this court." This is based on the Provincial court styling his name in mixed case while this court used all capitals. I stopped writing for a while because the styling issues obsessing him seemed to be never-ending and all repetition.
He said, after another interminable ramble through the styling guide, that he wants his indictment to be declared invalid and a nullity. Public respect for the legal system and the rule of law is very important and he, as a Canadian citizen, is in favour of these concepts. The violations of section 2(1) of the Supreme Court Act make these proceeding ultra vires so outside of the rule of law. The derogatory improper conduct by the Crown also requires the case be dropped. He brought out the duties of the prosecution from some unidentified documents and said that the defects he'd exposed showed that the Crown wasn't meeting their obligation. Then a sad story about how he was self-represented because he couldn't find a lawyer because they all bailed on him when they heard th details of his case. Judge -"No need to talk about past lawyers."
"The Crown should clearly tell me if I am a person in a private capacity. The Crown is required to give me a yes or not to my questions about jurisdiction. The failures, delays, and refusal of the Crown to do this have resulted in this application."
"The documents filed by the Crown are an abuse of process. The Crown thinks that all of my arguments have no merit. Crown is not being honest." Then he asked the judge to rummage through his application to see if she could find any other arguments in it for him that he hadn't found himself. Judge - "It is not the role of the court to find charter arguments for you. If you've identified a charter breach I'll hear it but I'm not going to create charter arguments on your behalf."
Then, back again, to the Porisky search. There were obvious defects between the search forms (information and warrant) so it was not a lawful search and you should disallow the evidence from it.. Judge said - "I can't do it. I have no jurisdiction over the Porisky and Gould search." So Lawson said fine, don't comment on the search warrant itself but bar the documents obtained from it (as I said, a very long day which was just getting stupider and stupider). Then he moved on to the search warrant that authorized the search of his own house. "My warrant has violations of the Criminal Code because it was not styled as a prescribed form. The styling did not meet the principles of fundamental justice." Then, unbelievably, he was done and break.
But before we took the afternoon break Crown counsel wanted to make a point. Justice Brown has already decided on issue of admissibility of evidence in the Porisky search. Justice Brown ruled in R v Anderson that Porisky search couldn't be argued and that, in the first Porisky trial, the search was found to be OK.
The Anderson case cited by the Crown is;
R. v. Anderson, 2014 BCSC 2002
http://canlii.ca/t/gkkbp
Which I have written up in considerable detail here;
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10747
Break over and Crown's turn. They demolished Lawson in about fifteen minutes. Essentially a slice and dice disembowelment. Crown counsel said she had provided written submission and she would only talk about the highlights so she was cautiously optimistic that we would finish. (we had less than an hour left). "It is the Crown's submission that today's application is the same as the two applications already heard by this court."
First the Crown cruelly used one of Lawson's own losses against him by citing one of his own cases;
R. v. Lawson, 2012 BCSC 356
http://canlii.ca/t/fqhb6
In which, in paragraph 9, "Justice Myers dealt with the capitalization issue and literary style. There is of course no legal argument supporting Mr. Lawson's position." Paragraph 10 covered the geographic location argument. "While current issue is not exactly the same it is still based on the capitalization reasons of Justice Myers." It is clear that we are dealing with a location not a corporation. Paragraph 12 takes a "dim view" of attempts to quash indictments on technical grounds. Paragraph 25 covers repetition. Lawson sought a declaration, the same as today, on the name styling of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. "The court said that there was "no doubt" that this was the Supreme court of British Columbia (as did Justice Brown last week) and that is just as applicable today." "Paragraph 29 says that there is no recognition of special status for "private persons" and the phrase "private person" was struck in the cause of style."
These are the cited paragraphs;
I. The informations and summonses
[8] Mr. Lawson advances both substantive and formal objections to the informations and summonses.
A. The formal objections
[9] The first formal objection I will deal with is: “a failure to properly identify either of the Applicants by his or her proper name in any of the counts or offences alleged therein.” This is so, Mr. Lawson argued, because his and his wife’s last name are capitalized in the informations and summonses. He cites a literary style guide in support of his argument. There is, of course, no legal requirement as to the capitalization of names in informations, summonses or other court documents. The accused are clearly and properly identified. Style guides are not legal authority, nor are they written as such.
[10] A second formal objection is: “… failure to state the geographic location where each of the alleged offences occurred.” In Mr. Lawson’s supplemental argument he states:
In the Information, neither of the terms “City of Burnaby,” and “Province of British Columbia” expresses a geographic location; i.e. a place, where the alleged offences were committed. The Canadian Style guide's rules for the style of geographical terms, in section 4.21(c), shows that those words are not a location, but are used in a corporate sense.
At the hearing, Mr. Lawson added that he was not a shareholder of Burnaby.
[11] I do not agree with this argument. In their context, the words clearly denote geographic locations.
[12] Furthermore, the courts have taken a dim view of applications to quash informations, summonses and indictments on formal or technical grounds. As Tim Quigley states in Procedure in Canadian Law, 2d ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2005) at p. 17-2:
[T]he Criminal Code has long sought to reduce the potential for technical defects to halt proceedings and, in recent years, the judiciary has increasingly stressed this aim. There is a marked preference for amending faulty informations and indictments, rather than to quash them, especially after the Supreme Court decision in R. v. Moore [(1998), 1988 CanLII 43 (SCC), 65 C.R. (3d) 1].
...
The position now is that only an indictment or information that discloses no offence known to law or is so badly drafted that it fails to provide notice of the offence charged will be quashed and then only if it cannot be amended.
[25] The first order sought is a declaration:
… that the court which will hear this application is the same Honorable Court having the name and style "Supreme Court of British Columbia" (the "Court"), as continued by s.2(1) of the Supreme Court Act, (R.S.B.C., 1996);
[28] There is no doubt that this is the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and no issue has been raised with respect to this Court’s constitution or jurisdiction, of which the Lawsons chose to avail themselves. The motion is unnecessary and frivolous, and is dismissed.
29] The second order sought is:
an order confirming that this Court recognizes each of the Applicants in propria persona, and each having the status of a private person, also known as a natural person, at common law for the purposes of these proceedings.
According to Mr. Lawson, this request was made of the Associate Chief Justice at the pre-application hearing and denied. I reach the same conclusion. This has no legal merit. The Lawsons are named individuals. There is no basis for the recognition of any special status, nor does one exist for them. There are no separate laws, rules, rights, remedies or procedures applicable to “natural persons” versus other individuals, or, for the sake of completeness, individual persons. In line with this, I order that the reference to “private person” following the applicants’ names in the style of cause be struck.
In short, all of the arguments that Lawson brought to court today were decisively rejected by the same court over four years ago. The cited paragraphs, even without any further submissions by the Crown, were dispositive of the issues in today's hearing. In the past four years he seems to have found nothing else that will help his defense and is still advancing arguments that are guaranteed to be rejected by the court. Perhaps he's so invested in his positions that he really doesn't understand this. I personally like paragraph 26 where Lawson warned the court of the dire consequences that would ensue if he wasn't given a hero's acclaim and his case quashed;
[26] In his supplemental argument Mr. Lawson argues that if the declaration is not granted there is:
…. the potential that the public will begin to perceive that if no lawful superior court exists in which people can have a reasonable expectation of the equal protection of law, as provided for by the Canadian Bill of Rights, then they will no longer seek to have their disputes and grievances settled in the courts, but will be more likely to take matters into their own hands to obtain justice by more swift and certain means against perceived adversaries and oppressors.
[27] I will give Mr. Lawson the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was not meant as a veiled threat. Even so, the argument is not helpful, constructive or appropriate.
Rioots and mayhem, blood on the streets if the general public finds out that Canada is actually spelled C A N A D A in government documents! Crown stated something about page ten and the correct seal but I missed the name of the document Crown referred to. Crown said that the style of the court seal does not affect the validity of the summons. This was in respect to his arguments that none of the documents filed in the Supreme Court registry were allowable because the Supreme Court seal used on them was in all capital letters.
Crown then referred to a case I either copied incorrectly or isn't reported. I didn't get the name but the citation I got was 2014 SCBC 2573. There is no case listed in CanLii under that citation.
Crown quoted something from Madam Dean paragraph 2 to the effect that various courts have dismissed natural persons arguments and, from paragraph 9, about there being no merit to the argument that provincial judges lost jurisdiction.
"It is my respectful submission that for the past four years this court has been dealing with repeated applications on the same issues of capital letters" Then Crown brought Meads v Meads into the picture. ACJ Rooke of the Alberta Queen's Bench coined the term Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA). Crown said that it is not derogatory to identify proceedings as showing OPCA hallmarks. She listed some of these Meads hallmarks but I was too far behind to list them. Anyone wanting to read Meads can find it here;
http://canlii.ca/t/fsvjq
And a review of the decision here;
http://ablawg.ca/2012/10/30/the-organiz ... gant-case/
The Crown said that Lawson's affidavit supporting his application contained argument rather than fact. Crown said that Lawson showed OPCA characteristics in these proceedings. We heard today that Lawsons said he was participating in a conditional status. Unnecessary use of notarized documents. Affidavits rare in pre-trial applications. Crown cited paragraphs 628 and 629 of Meads and stated that courts must use inherent jurisdiction to control process. It is our duty to identify common issues with other courts and identify OPCA litigants.
These are the cited paragraphs from Meads;
[628] OPCA litigants are typically self-represented, and that means they are owed the R. v. Phillips, 2003 ABCA 4, 320 A.R. 172, affirmed en toto, 2003 SCC 57, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 623, duty that a judge act to ensure the OPCA litigant=s right to a fair proceeding is preserved by guiding the litigant through the trial process. The Alberta Court of Appeal in Cold Lake First Nations v. Alberta (Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation), 2012 ABCA 36 at para. 24 described that obligation as a judge has A... a special duty to provide limited assistance to unrepresented parties ...@. At para. 25 the scope of that obligation is reviewed:
The extent of this duty depends on the totality of the circumstances, including the seriousness of the offence, the defences raised, and the sophistication of the unrepresented party ... The judge's advice must be interactive, appropriate to the unrepresented party and to the surrounding circumstances of the case ... Just how far a judge should go in guiding an unrepresented party is a matter of judicial discretion ... [Citations omitted.]
[629] That is clearly a contextual response. In OPCA litigation, that duty occurs in the face of vexatious litigation and procedural strategies that are designed to disrupt court operation and impede the exercise of legal rights. OPCA litigants have chosen to implement strategies that they have been told will, at a minimum, paralyze court operation, if not break it. That means OPCA litigants have, first and foremost, decided to adopt vexatious litigation strategies. These OPCA litigants claim (wrongly) to be outside court jurisdiction - the rules do not apply to them.
"The Crown submits that the orders being sought today relate to two things, defects in documents and jurisdiction of the court."
Defects - "There are no defects in the documents. There is no issue of claimed meaning in different letter cases. The styling does not indicate location or legal status. The defendant and places are clearly identifiable in all documents. Prescribed forms are not mandatory in criminal cases. The Interpretation Acts says "Where forms are prescribed deviations from the common form do not invalidate the form". In day to day practice it is impossible to make all forms the same. Compute document copying, personal preferences, all result in differing forms. These do not affect the substance of litigation. So there are no defects and none of the documents are a nullity."
- Lawful jurisdiction - "There is no merit to the argument that these proceedings are not in the lawful jurisdiction of the court."
Since Lawson was so obsessed with the details of the Supreme Court Act and his interpretation of it the Crown apparently thought it a good idea to cite a section which said that the court had jurisdiction over all of British Columbia and could sit anywhere in British Columbia. The territorial jurisdiction of the court was not broken up into required districts, it covered all of the province of British Columbia. I believe counsel was referring to section 9;
9 (1) The court continues to be a court of original jurisdiction and has jurisdiction in all cases, civil and criminal, arising in British Columbia.
(2) The court may sit and act, at any time and at any place, for the transaction of any part of its business, civil or criminal, or for the discharge of any duty.
(2.1) Without limiting subsection (2), and despite any rule of law or enactment to the contrary, any criminal or civil matter that under any rule of law or enactment is to be or must be heard, or that an accused or a party is entitled to have heard, by the court in one of the County of Vancouver or the County of Westminster may be heard at any place within the Vancouver Westminster Judicial District that the court appoints.
(3) Subject to the direction of the Chief Justice, the court must sit in each place where there is a registry of the court as often as is necessary for the reasonable dispatch of civil trials and other business.
(4) The registrar must prepare a calendar of the dates when the court proposes to sit in any place to be published in the registry located there.
Regardless of whether Lawson claims to be a special person, private or conditional, none affect his status in this court. Crown mentioned a few of last week's arguments to show Lawson was just repeating himself in this hearing. It is Crown's submission that there is no merit to this application, no basis to find a Charter breach or make any awards in respect to application.
Lawson had the right to a reply but we were out of time after a long day. There was a pre-trial conference scheduled for the same judge in three days on April 1 and judge told Lawson he could make his reply then. While my dental appointment meant I couldn't make it I found out the result. All of Lawson's applications were dismissed.
Later, writing this up, I realized I actually at one time knew and worked with the judge! Her name is Justice Jeanne Watchuk and, way way back in (I believe) the early 1980's she worked in the tax component of the Vancouver Department of Justice and I recall her being involved in some file I was working on. She went from Justice to the Provincial court of British Columbia and, in 2010, moved upward and onward to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. And the reason for her promotion was again connected to my past. She was appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Ian Pitfield who had retired from the bench. In the 1970's Pitfield was a lawyer at (at that time) Thorsteinsson, Mitchell, Little, O’Keefe & Davidson, Vancouver's main tax law firm and now just named Thornsteinssons. It is Canada's biggest tax law firm. I dealt extensively with Thornsteinssons lawyers throughout my CRA career, including Pitfield. He followed the same path as Watchuk, appointment to the Provincial Court and then appointment to the Supreme Court.
I plan to attend the first week of Lawson's trial but, unfortunately, I'll miss the second week because I'll be in Death Valley and, for at least for one night, staying at the Amargosa Opera House;
http://www.amargosa-opera-house.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amargosa_ ... _and_Hotel
Sometimes retirement takes you in strange directions. Like lawson's trial.