Commission gets judicial thrashing. Ruling against Human Rights panel seen as victory for free speech.
Leroy N. Soetoro
ing/2308924/story.html
If you want to see all the things wrong with human rights commissions,
they are on display in Mr. Justice Earl Wilson's ruling Thursday in the
case of Boissoin v Lund.
Stephen Boissoin is a former youth pastor from Red Deer who wrote a
letter to the Red Deer Advocate in June 2002 expressing harsh,
unpleasant, even contemptible views about the gay rights movement.
Darren Lund, now a University of Calgary professor, was at the time a
Red Deer high school teacher who filed a complaint with the Alberta
Human Rights Commission charging that Boissoin's words promoted
prejudice against gays.
In 2007, the commission sided with Lund and ordered Boissoin to pay a
fine of $5,000, write a letter of apology to be printed in the Advocate
and never again publicly criticize what Boissoin had called "the
homosexual machine."
Justice Wilson's decision has been heralded as a victory for free
speech, which it is.
More correctly, though, it is a win for due process, something human
rights commissions have routinely abused in recent years in their witch
hunts on behalf of political correctness.
Justice Wilson did not strike down those sections of the Alberta Human
Rights Act that permit the commission to investigate and prosecute words
and ideas. So in that sense, his decision was not a robust defence of
free expression.
But that is not his job, either.
If Albertans want provincial law changed, if they want our laws to
protect all views--even hard, objectionable ones such as Boissoin's--
they should pressure the provincial legislature to strip the commission
of its power to sit in judgment over which political, ideological and
theological views are permissible and which are not.
Judges should be rightly wary of overturning laws duly passed by the
people's elected representatives.
What the judge did in fact was tell the commission that if it is going
wield the power to judge speech, it must set a much higher bar for
itself than it used against Pastor Boissoin, and it must respect rights
such as the accused's presumption of innocence.
Justice Wilson was scathing about the twisted logic, slipshod evidence
and biased approach used by the commission's one-woman inquiry.
In effect, the judge found that Lori Andreachuk, the Lethbridge lawyer
who heard the case on behalf of the commission, had stacked the deck
against Boissoin from the start.
She made at least three "fatal" errors in deciding that the commission
had jurisdiction to hear Lund's complaint, got her reasoning "somewhat
backward," "misread the letter" Boissoin had published in the paper and
had taken several passages out of context in her effort to side with
Lund.
Her "erroneous" reasoning "stripped" Boissoin of "any credible
contextual basis" by which to defend his right to free speech.
But worst of all for Andreachuk and the commission were Justice Wilson's
comments on the news story at the heart of Lund's complaint and of the
commission's ruling against Boissoin.
Two weeks after publishing Boissoin's letter calling on readers to "take
whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness" of the gay
rights movement, which he contended was "just as immoral as the
pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities," the
Advocate carried a news story in which a gay teenager claimed to have
been assaulted because of his orientation.
In the story, the alleged victim told the reporter that he was sure the
pastor's letter had contributed to his attack.
"Unfortunately," Justice Wilson wrote, "no one seemed to appreciate that
there was no evidence of an assault at all, nor any evidence as to the
accuracy of the news report of the alleged assault nor of the quotation
attributed to the alleged victim."
In short, while Lund said he was prompted to file his complaint based on
the reports of an attack on a gay teen, there was not only no evidence
that the teen's attacker had been encouraged by the letter, there was no
evidence--period -- that the alleged attack took place.
So eager were Lund and the commission to excoriate Boissoin, they based
nearly the whole of their case on "hearsay."
Evidence!? Ha! When a favoured cause is at stake, the commission needs
no stinkin' evidence.
Fundamentally, this is what is wrong with the commissions. They are
bound by none of the customary protections against wrongful conviction.
Citizens hauled before an inquiry, as Stephen Boissoin was, have no
right to face their accusers.
There are no safeguards against bad evidence--or no evidence-- being
used to convict them. They must pay their own legal costs while
taxpayers foot the bill for their accusers.
The commissions are nothing more than jumped-up little kangaroo courts
in the service of politically correct groups.
It is long past time that the Alberta commission's power to judge speech
was removed, but don't hold your breath that this provincial government
will have the courage to do so.
--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
Rangel's tax evasion.
Liberals cannot stifle free speech
Peter Principle
ing/2308924/story.html
Every gay and gay supporter should be dumped on a desert island.
duane
> http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Commission+gets+judicial+th...
An otherwise decent explanation ruined by your obvious homophobia.
Asshole
Mike Painter
Nothing. The criminal just broke the copyright law again.