I have determined that Mr. Lemire contravened s. 13 of the Act in only one of the instances alleged by Mr. Warman, namely the AIDS Secrets article. However, I have also concluded that s. 13(1) in conjunction with ss. 54(1) and (1.1) are inconsistent with s. 2(b) of the Charter, which guarantees the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. The restriction imposed by these provisions is not a reasonable limit within the meaning of s. 1 of the Charter. Since a formal declaration of invalidity is not a remedy available to the Tribunal (see Cuddy Chicks Ltd. V. Ontario (Labour Relations Board), [1991] 2 S.C.R. 5), I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him (see Nova Scotia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v. Martin, 2003 SCC 54 at paras. 26-7).
Athanasios D. Hadjis, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision in Warman vs. Lemire, 2009-09-02
September 2, 2009
QotD: Section 13 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
August 28, 2009
QotD: Trading one right for all the others
At some point we will come to see that the developed world’s massive expansion of personal sexual liberty has provided a useful cover for the shrivelling of almost every other kind. Free speech, property rights, economic liberty and the right to self-defence are under continuous assault by Big Government. But who cares when Big Government lets you shag anything that moves and every city in North America hosts a grand parade to celebrate your right to do so? It’s an oddly reductive notion of individual liberty. The noisier grow the novelties of our ever more banal individualism, the more the overall societal aesthetic seems drearily homogenized — like closing time in a karaoke bar with the last sad drunks bellowing off the prompter “I did it My Way!”
And in the end even the sex doesn’t do it. In the Netherlands, the most progressive nation in Europe, the land where whatever’s your bag is cool, where naked women beckon from storefront windows, a certain ennui is palpable. Last week, the ANP news agency released a poll showing that the Dutch now derive more pleasure from going to the bathroom than from sex. It wasn’t a close-run thing: eighty per cent identified a trip to the toilet as the activity “they enjoy the most” — or, as the South African newspaper the Witness put it, “The Bog’s Better Than Bonking.” To modify Eliot, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a flush.
Mark Steyn, “Do you notice anything shrivelling? We’ve never had more personal sexual liberty. And less freedom of almost every other kind”, Macleans, 2008-08-27
August 26, 2009
Gun-toting protests ineffective?
Megan McArdle points out that folks simultaneously exercising their freedom to assemble, freedom to petition for redress of grievance, and freedom to bear arms are not likely to succeed:
I think carrying guns to protests is entirely counterproductive. Indeed, I’m not sold on the general virtues of protesting, which worked for Gandhi and the civil rights marcher, but has a dismal track record on other concerns. But I think people have a perfect right to do it, including with guns, though I also think the secret service is within its rights to ensure that they don’t have a sight line on the president.
But the hysteria about them has been even more ludicrous. Numerous people claim to believe that this makes it likely, even certain, that someone will shoot at the president. This is very silly, because the president is not anywhere most of the gun-toting protesters, who have showed up at all sorts of events. It is, I suppose, more plausible to believe that they might take a shot at someone else. But not very plausible: the rate of crime associated with legal gun possession or carrying seems to be very low. Guns, it turn out, do not turn ordinary people into murderers. They make murderers more effective.
So perhaps unsurprisingly, when offered the opportunity to put some money down on the proposition that one of these firearms is soon going to be discharged at someone, they all decline.
I have to agree with Megan . . . when I saw the images of individuals attending the protests while openly carrying firearms, I thought it would have a negative effect on the undecided viewer. I’m in favour of all the freedoms: assembly, speech, bearing arms (not a freedom we enjoy in Canada, BTW), but this was an inappropriate time and place to exercise that last freedom. It makes the debate more murky, and allows people to characterize their opponents in ways totally unrelated to the issue being protested.
A political own-goal, as it were.
August 11, 2009
So much for the right to not self-incriminate
The headline really does tell the story: Two convicted for refusal to decrypt data: Up to five years in jail after landmark prosecutions. You will provide the key, citizen . . . or you’ll do hard time:
Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years.
The government said today it does not know their fate.
The power to force people to unscramble their data was granted to authorities in October 2007. Between 1 April, 2008 and 31 March this year the first two convictions were obtained.
The disclosure was made by Sir Christopher Rose, the government’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner, in his recent annual report.
The former High Court judge did not provide details of the crimes being investigated in the case of the individuals &mash; who were not necessarily suspects — nor of the sentences they received.
July 20, 2009
July 10, 2009
Maybe photographers in the UK actually do have rights
Clive sent me this update from The Register:
The Metropolitan Police has issued guidance to its officers to remind them that using a camera in public is not in itself a terrorist offence.
There has been increasing concern in recent months that police have been over-using terrorism laws and public order legislation to harass professional and amateur photographers. The issue was raised in Parliament and the Home Office agreed to look at the rules.
The guidance reminds officers that the public do not need a licence to take photographs in the street and the police have no power to stop people taking pictures of anything they like, including police officers.
The over-used Terrorism Act of 2000 does not ban photography either, although it does allow police to look at images on phones or cameras during a search to see if they could be useful to a terrorist.
This is a belated follow-up to incidents like this one (oh, and this one, too). It’s refreshing to see that at least one government recognizes that recent police enforcement of a non-existant law must be curtailed. It’s also sad that this sort of thing is still so rare as to be noteworthy.
Oh, and Canadians shouldn’t try to be smug about this . . . we have over-enthusiastic police enforcement of mythical laws as well.
(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005569.html.)
