From: Marjaleena Repo
Sent: July 11, 2023
Subject: My trial and the judgment
DAY ONE IN COURT: THE TRIAL
First day in Saskatoon’s provincial court, July 6, ’23. The trial is about disobeying Public Health Orders of having more than ten people assemble at an outdoors event, the Children’s Freedom Rally in Saskatoon April 24, 2021, to protest the forcing of masks on children.
I am as prepared as I can be, but am seriously handicapped by not being able to have a lawyer as my assistant in my self-representation. (Thirteen approached, thirteen refused.) I argue that the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights protected my three fundamental rights at the children’s rally: Right to Freedom of Conscience (opinion and belief), Right to Free Expression, and Right to Free Association.
I was happy to be able to expand on why the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights respects what the Charter of Rights doesn’t, and never did, as the Charter in its section 1 offers the governments a way out to nullify a win for the defendants, which has actually happened in the bulk of lawsuits during the lockdown.
Our seven stalwarts had intense discussions afterwards about the goings on in the court and the arguments used by the crown, which mainly consisted of praising the Charter and trying, not very well and with major contradictions, to deny that the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights continues to exist.
I was happy to get all the well wishes for the court and the many prayers, which added up to me feeling calm about the difficult event, but would have also wanted to see more actual support in the court from those who weren’t working and were not otherwise occupied. Thanks to Grant, Lillian, Charlotte, Wayne and Arloa for being there — and Grant for taking copious notes!
DAY TWO IN COURT: THE JUDGMENT — GUILTY AS CHARGED
Judge Agnew recognized my defence under the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, did not dispute my argument (via the Charter’s clause 26 that it acknowledges the existence of other previous Canadian rights and possibly other future rights as well) and against the Crown’s contention that the Charter, (with its debilitating clauses 1 and 33), at all times took precedence over the Bill of Rights. He also accepted that the Provincial Court had the jurisdiction to deal with the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights although there have been other cases where the jurisdiction was ruled by a judge or judges to belong to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (where I absolutely did not want to go to deal with this or any other issue, having had a singularly bad experience with it!) Crown Counsel Noah S. Wernikowski who made a long and elaborate (to me) defense of the Charter, how much better it is, how much more used, and how the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights is merely “anachronistic,” i.e. very old (70 years) and out of date, had the Judge at one point make it clear to the him that I was arguing the Bill of Rights in my defense and not the Charter, and that the Counsel’s claim that I had “diminished the Charter” in my argument (which I did), was not relevant. I referred to Mr. Wernikowski’s argument against the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights as “the charterization” of the Bill of Rights, meaning he was trying hard to get the Charter to swallow this Bill and any other existing ones (Canadian Bill of Rights and the Alberta Bill of Rights) whose existence the Charter itself had recognized in its section 26.
In his ruling, however, Judge Agnew cited certain sections of a Supreme Court decision, R v Sullivan from 2022 he contended bound him to “stare decisis”, or rule by precedent, where he must follow decision(s) from comparable court rulings on similar cases within the province, ie. Grandel v Saskatchewan decision, Sep/2022 (where Justice Konkin upheld the Province’s Public Health Orders). Judge Agnew suggested there were also openings in the Sullivan decision that I could have used to argue in my favour, but as I did not, he was bound to rule against me. (I am more than curious about this statement by the Judge because up to that point I was unaware of the Sullivan case, which the Crown Counsel had not referred to, and of course wonder what ruling(s) the Judge might use in his decision).
He dismissed my arguments of discrimination, where I had been ticketed while demonstrators in other kinds of protests were not, citing a Supreme Court ruling supporting police discretionary powers of law enforcement, meaning it’s up to the police to decide who they ticket, and besides I could not prove the discrimination, because there were people on our side who had not gotten tickets and I would have had no proof that nobody at all got tickets on the other side.
In his reading of his judgment Judge Agnew made a few statements that shocked and surprised me, such as that I had supposedly argued that Saskatchewan Bill of Rights “has restrictions, too,” when I had made no such statement, and said the opposite, namely that its declared rights are “absolute” and cannot be imposed by the government as they can in the Section 1 of the Charter. I had clearly stated that there are no restrictions, and in cases that the Bill would touch upon where violence is present, such as leaflets advocating the use of violence against somebody or something, the Criminal Code will take care of that business. (This was an answer to a trick question by Judge Agnew, because he was anxious to prove that I believe that restrictions exist in the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, just like in the Charter.) The actual transcript of my argument on that issue will show that he distorted my answer for his own purposes, so that he could call my position “incoherent.”
The second comment was him using the word “egregious” to describe my participation in the rally against forced used of masks on children. The word in common usage means “outstandingly bad, shocking, appalling,” and many other similar descriptive words and yet I had not been allowed to say anything about the reasons for my participation in the rally, because my trial was to ONLY consider the number of people allowed to gather outdoors, which was only ten. That is why my MAIN defense was the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, although I made a few comments about the absurdity of that and similar other numbers and also referred to my own predicament of not being able to wear a mask.
Judge Agnew declared me guilty as charged, like he had already done with perhaps dozens of others in Saskatchewan. He reduced my fine to $1,400 but only because of my low income and some prevailing health issues that the Crown prosecutor Buffy Rodgers (who otherwise played no role in the trial) mentioned when asking the judge to determine my fine level.
He will submit his decision in writing and mail it to me fairly quickly, I understood. I think I have to seriously consider ordering a transcript to see clearly those shockingly prejudicial and partisan comments by the judge.
(Thank you, Grant Orchard, for your notes from the court.)
WHAT NOW? NEXT STEP
I have yet to receive the judgment in its written form. I have a new page in my notebook: THE APPEAL, so I’m getting ready to consider it, as Judge Agnew should not get away with distorting my words on the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights to mean their opposite! The first transcript I would order is his oral delivery of the judgment, to make sure there are no differences between the written and spoken ones.
Marjaleena
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Thank you, Sandra. I did approach JCCF along with Rebel News very early after I received the ticket. They acknowledged that they got my request for support, told me they had many applicants, and I never heard from them again. I figured out very early that I was on my own.
Today good news: A man from Regina read the article about my trial in the Western Standard Magazine, and contacted the author of it. He wanted to pay my fine of $1,400, but said he would put [that money into paying for the transcript that would be needed] if I planned to appeal, which I am doing. The article is mostly factual, but wrongly claimed that I had rejected help from 13 lawyers, when it was the other way around: they rejected me, some with real hostility for me protesting the public health measures! https://www.westernstandard.news/news/saskatoon-nci-witness-fined-1-400/article_2c649ed0-1f41-11ee-9383-173267b55d4d.html?fbclid=IwAR1Ha9VzmQ5850vYNwchirhUNuKn-_qCr9S5otSkaG9THIpb5dYx1tJRrRQ
Marjaleena