If I read that correctly (and I'm pretty sure I do), Ezra's argument is that, since lockdown regulations no longer apply now, the court has no basis to punish Pastor Artur for his breaking lockdown regulations when they were clearly in effect and being enforced before.
Please tell me this is the argument Pastor Art's idiot lawyers are actually trying in court. And please tell me there are transcripts.
4 comments:
Ezra kinda, sorta has a point, but it's pretty weak. In most cases, a judge will keep someone in custody if they think that person will re-offend, so if lockdown regulations were still in effect, and Pastor Art insisted that, if he was released, he would immediately start his illegal services again, then there's no question that the judge has grounds to keep him in jail and absolutely no one could argue against that.
I'm guessing that Pastor Art's Rebel-supplied lawyers are going to argue that, since the lockdown regs were lifted, then Pastor Art can't re-offend anymore, so there are no grounds for sending him back to jail.
All that's reasonable except for one thing: the judge has a lot of discretion to do whatever the fuck he wants, and it's clear Pastor Art has really pissed him off, so maybe he's sending him back just because he feels like it. That may not be a rigorous legal position, but Pastor Art has gone out of his way to be a contemptuous asshole, so he really can't complain if the Court is tired of his shit.
I could be mistaken, but I believe the charges under discussion are Pawlowski's Contempt of Court and breach of condition charges, so the current regulations have no bearing on that. It's not about Covid regs, although that the basis of the earlier; this is about a series of aggressive "Fuck Yous" to the court.
But Ezra, of course always lies about the nature of the charge. Pawlowki is being jailed for feeding the poor! Ezra's being fined for writing a book! Etc., etc...
Anon 2: This reminds me of something I've wondered about for a while -- while lawyers are allowed to speak to the public about how their case is going, what are the consequences for massively misrepresenting the arguments being presented? That is, if we assume that Pastor Artur's Rebel-supplied lawyers are doing their best to address the actual issues, what happens if they (or Ezra) subsequently go public and say something totally inaccurate like, "The judge is simply sending Pastor Art back to jail because he hates Christians!"
I'm pretty sure I've read about instances like this, where the judge tears a strip off a lawyer for publicly describing ongoing proceedings really inaccurately.
The decision around granting bail isn't solely around "whether the accused will re-offend", there's a whole stack of considerations at play, including the offender's attitude towards the courts. (Which has been well documented in Pawlowski's case)
He's been a nuisance in Calgary courts for a long time - and while he's slightly smarter about it than your typical "Freeman on the Land" type, he spends a lot of court time arguing that he's not _REALLY_ breaking the law. I imagine part of what is going on here is the judges involved have seen this guy enough times for one thing or another, and this time his arguments just aren't likely to hold up.
Since the practical punishments here are things like a week or two in jail, or perhaps a fine, they're basically letting him cool his heels until trial day, and then they'll hand down a sentence which conveniently works out to "time already served". Meanwhile, he will have served more time in prison than the sentence actually requires.
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