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Unlike Randy Richmond of The London Free Press, who's too busy valet-parking Richard Warman's bicycle, Ezra Levant has spotted the most interesting aspect of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's latest decision:
Look at paragraph 10, which cites an earlier Chair's interim ruling on Warman v. Ouwendyk (my emphasis):
The hearing on the question of the constitutional validity of the impugned sections of the Act will be deferred pending the outcome in Lemire. If the complaint is substantiated, the Tribunal will not issue any order until the final determination by the Courts of the constitutional question.
In other words, no matter what the Tribunal found in Warman v. Ouwendyk, they're not going to issue any orders until Marc Lemire's constitutional challenge has a "final" determination. That could mean a trip to the Supreme Court -- in about 2012.
In this case, the Tribunal was so disgusted with Warman -- and so stupefied that a complaint would be made against a website that doesn't exist -- that he really didn't plan to issue any order at all. But had he wanted to throw the book at Ouwendyk, he couldn't -- another Tribunal chair had ruled that everything is on ice until Lemire is done.
The enforcement of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act has been suspended indefinitely by the CHRT.
That's fascinating.
Indeed. As we've all observed, neo-Nazi website poster Richard Warman is now a busted flush. Justice has not only to be done, but to be seen to be done, and even "human rights" justice can no longer be seen to hang out with such a creepily narcissistic obsessive as Warmfront. But the larger point is, as Ezra says, fascinating. The endgame for Maclean's and me has always been to get this thing to the Supreme Court and have Section 13 and its provincial equivalents struck down. That takes a long time and it's expensive (which is why we encourage you to buy a copy of Shakedown, or take out a subscription to Maclean's).
However, it is a remarkable tribute to the speed with which the law has been "denormalized" (in Ezra's word) that the Tribunal has, in effect, concluded that Section 13 cannot be enforced. Like many laws, it remains on the books, but even the kangaroo courts understand that it can no longer be enforced. It reflects worse on them than on the accused. That's great news - except, as Ezra adds:
But look what hasn't been suspended: the investigations and prosecutions of section 13. And, as I've said a dozen times before, it's the process that's the real punishment. In this case, it was three years from complaint to ruling -- three years of bullying someone because they had "wrong" political ideas.
The CHRC and the CHRT will continue with that informal punishment, the punishment of abusive process.
The law is coming apart at the seams; the law's chief user has been officially exposed as malign; the law's enforcement has been suspended; but the sick, sick HRC system continues to grind on, using our money and abusing our heritage of natural justice.
He's right. The "thought police" will recommend fewer Section 13 cases to the Tribunal but will take longer and longer, and more and more of the defendant's time and money, to conduct the preliminary investigation. We have denormalized the creepy Warman, and denormalized the law itself. It is important now to denormalize the abusive half-decade-long investigation procedures. After being dragged through the process over nothing for five years, even B'nai Brith, one of the CHRC's favored sons, should figure that out.
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