Court status and initial submissions

• By Zoe
• Posted in Court Updates
• On April 15, 2010
• 4 Comments.

First, a note on case status and scheduling. We don’t know yet how long this case will take. Here are the due dates we have from the court for various filings:

• June 8, 2010: Evidence from Amicus and Interested Persons in support of the position that s. 293 violates any of the rights or freedoms enshrined in the Charter;
• July 16, 2010: Evidence from AGBC, AG Canada, and Interested Persons opposing the position that s. 293 violates Charter rights, and/or supporting the position that any violation is a justified infringement under s. 1;
• September 30, 2010: Evidence from Amicus and Interested Persons opposing the position that a violation is justified under s. 1.

There may or may not be more motions and other filings that may affect the scheduling of the case. The court will presumably need to schedule hearings, and is free to take as much time as it feels appropriate to decide once all the argument is done. There’s been a media report that the court has told the attorneys to block off time for the case around the end of the year; I haven’t verified that with our chief counsel.

Even after the decision, it’s entirely possible that there’ll be appeals; two levels of appeals will be available. We have no way of knowing whether anybody will try to appeal the decision, or whether the appellate courts will choose to hear the case.

So it’s hard to say how long this will take overall.

Second, some of you have asked to see what the CPAA submitted when we applied to intervene back in January. We thought we’d go one better. We have the affidavits containing initial position summaries from most of those involved. Unfortunately, there is as yet no outline of the arguments to be presented by the court-appointed amicus who will be the primary advocate against Section 293, but everybody else is represented to some degree or another. So here they are. No summaries and no comments; we don’t want to make a mistake and be accused of misrepresenting anybody.

First ours:

• Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association

Now the BC Attorney General’s office. The AG will be making the primary defense of Section 293. This summary is a little different from the others, because it’s not part of an application to intervene. The AG is a party to the case and had no need to prove suitability to be involved, so this is closer to pure argument.

• Attorney General of British Columbia

… and now everybody else in alphabetical order. All the individuals and groups listed below, except for Winston Blackmore, were allowed to participate in the case after these were filed. Mr. Blackmore has asked to be accepted as a full party to the case, rather than as an intervener/interested party. There’s been no decision on that, although one may be forthcoming soon.

• Beyond Borders
• British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
• British Columbia Teachers’ Federation
• Canadian Association for Free Expression
• Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children/Asper Center (Choudry, Asper)
• Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children/Asper Center (Vandergrift, CCRC)
• Catholic Organization for Life and Family
• Christian Legal Fellowship
• Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints/James Oler
• REAL Women of Canada
• Stop Polygamy in Canada
• West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund
• Winston Blackmore

Happy reading. And for reference, here’s the section at issue, slightly reformatted to make the HTML easier:

Polygamy

293.

1. Every one who
   1. practises or enters into or in any manner agrees or consents to practise or enter into
      1. any form of polygamy, or
      2. any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time,

      whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or

   2. celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (a)(i) or (ii),

   is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

   Evidence in case of polygamy

2. Where an accused is charged with an offence under this section, no averment or proof of the method by which the alleged relationship was entered into, agreed to or consented to is necessary in the indictment or on the trial of the accused, nor is it necessary on the trial to prove that the persons who are alleged to have entered into the relationship had or intended to have sexual intercourse.