Court Updates

Decision November 23

Nov 8th, 2011 | By

The Court has announced that the judgement will be released at 10:00 (AM, Vancouver time), on November 23, 2011. The reasons for decision will posted here at that time: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/supreme_court/recent_Judgments.aspx There will be about an hour and half of supervised early access for the parties’ counsel and the media, but any counsel or media people who participate will not be allowed to communicate with the “outside world” until release time.
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Closing Arguments begin March 28th

Mar 21st, 2011 | By

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has obtained the right (a first in BC) to video tape court proceedings of the closing arguments and is webcasting live only (video and sound) here: Starts March 28, at 10 am Pacific Standard Time Here
Wait for the commercial and the video is there when court is in session.
Schedule of presentation of closing arguments are here:



30 to 1 or 500 to 1, we dwarf Bountiful. Why is it about them?

Dec 1st, 2010 | By

Among those affected by the “polygamy law”, polyamorists are the ones with the numbers.

So who chose Bountiful to be the public face?

Most polyamorists don’t think of ourselves as “polygamous”, but the law does. The “polygamy law” says modern, secular, egalitarian conjugal polyamorists should go to prison.

For every polygynous family in Bountiful, Canada has dozens, maybe hundreds, of polyamorous families. At a minimum, there are about as many of us as there are Muslim polygynists… who also vastly outnumber Bountiful. We may outnumber even Muslims… by as much as 15 to 1. Invisibility hurts us… and it’s not deserved.

Click the headline for details.



S.293 reference starts. We give you ALL the documents

Nov 21st, 2010 | By

Oral arguments are beginning. We’re celebrating the first live action in the reference case by opening up our internal archive of court documents. This includes practically every court document filed by every party to the case.

Here’s the Google Docs folder.

As far as we know, this is the only complete and unbiased collection of these documents available to the public, short of going down to the courthouse.

[2010-12-08: Archive now maintained by the AGBC]



Application for Clarification of AG’s positions on Polyamory Denied

Sep 25th, 2010 | By

“Even though our application was rejected, I think the exercise was valuable in familiarizing the judge with polyamory generally, in starting the discussion in the media, and in getting clearer where the prov AG is thinking.”



Evidence filed with BC Supreme Court

Jun 3rd, 2010 | By

Update June 10: links fixed.

The CPAA has filed its evidence with the court. The main thrust of our evidence was to describe examples of Canadian polyamourous families. We filed affidavits with detailed descriptions of five different healthy, functioning poly groups in five provinces. Each group was described by one of its members.



Legislative history of Section 293

May 12th, 2010 | By

Almost a month ago, we posted the Attorney General’s summary of the polygamy statute’s legislative history, but we didn’t have the supporting documents. We can now give you the whole thing. The record seems silent about the problems most of Section 293′s modern proponents claim it’s needed to address.



COLF and Knights of Columbus drop out

Apr 22nd, 2010 | By

The two Catholic organizations have dropped out of the case.



Blackmore denied party status

Apr 21st, 2010 | By

Winston Blackmore has been denied full party status and government funding.



Court status and initial submissions

Apr 15th, 2010 | By

Initial arguments and evidence (including ours) are due in mid-June. We have affidavits including summaries of most of the positions, including our own.