No appeal… we need your help on long-term strategy
George Macintosh, the court-appointed lawyer arguing against Canada’s “polygamy law”, won’t appeal Chief Justice Bauman’s November 23 finding. The CPAA expected an appeal and is surprised.
We don’t have legal standing to bring our own appeal. Unless the Attorneys General decide to take this to a higher court, we don’t see any way to attack Section 293 directly in the near future.
The good news: without litigation setting an agenda for us, we can set our own, taking a fresh look at what Canada’s poly majority needs. We’re free to think about the long term, and we’d like your help.
If we really are done in court for now, in the coming weeks and months we’ll look at where the CPAA should go next: what our principles should be, where our priorities should lie, what services we should provide, what strategies we should use, who our allies should be, how we’ll be funded, and how we should organize ourselves. We can reinvent the CPAA completely, if that’s what needs to be done.
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Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Decision November 23
The Court has announced that the judgement will be released at 10:00 (AM, Vancouver time), on November 23, 2011. The
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Closing Arguments begin March 28th
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:
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
30 to 1 or 500 to 1, we dwarf Bountiful. Why is it about them?
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.
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
S.293 reference starts. We give you ALL the documents
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]
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Application for Clarification of AG’s positions on Polyamory Denied
“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.”
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Evidence filed with BC Supreme Court
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.
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Legislative history of Section 293
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.
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
COLF and Knights of Columbus drop out
The two Catholic organizations have dropped out of the case.
Updates on litigation: polygamy reference case.
Blackmore denied party status
Winston Blackmore has been denied full party status and government funding.
Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association -
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