We will not have “justice”, unless there is a review, and overhaul, of the legal system

Today we have a guest writer of Conservative Thoughts … an opinion piece courtesy of Bob Tarplett.  It was written following an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail on Tuesday January 4, 2012.  The story concerned the Stanley Cup Riot, and the inordinately slow process to get the rioters to court.  Here's what Bob had to say:

BC definitely needs a very major overhaul of its court system -- one that is causing a massive backlog – and that is a very major problem for real justice to occur in this province.  Charter limitations enable important trials to be scrapped, when they should be prioritized to enable justice to be fully implemented. 

We need to find ways to speed up the legal system to do away with time wasters such as short 4 hour court days (starting at 10am, 2 hour lunch, and finishing at 4pm), multiple appearances, condensing pretrial procedures such as jury selection, preliminary hearing, setting court date, request for legal or medical reports, and bail. Why do we need to waste further court time, just to sentence a convicted person, when one would expect that judges should have sufficient knowledge and experience in law and sentencing to be able to select the appropriate sentence --directly after the jury has been discharged -- not 1 to 2 months later!

The UK legal system has another tier of courts, other than main criminal courts - namely the magistrate courts that use Justices of the Peace.  These are qualified persons who have a knowledge of basic law sufficient to deal with minor offenses such as drunk driving, stealing, motorizing offenses, loitering with intent, rioting.

In BC we waste valuable time, of qualified judges, to perform this very minor legal procedure! Magistrates can effectively deal with a cases such as those taking place in the Stanley Cup rioting or pass the case up to a more senior court where the offense is more complicated and involved major events such as arson and looting that carry tougher sentencing and longer terms of imprisonment! In some countries, looting is dealt with very swiftly and effectively with far stiffer sentences!

Criminal trial lawyers are also a “major obstruction” in the court system with often times petty legal technicalities, as well as charter and evidence issues that add substantially to court costs.

Yes -- we do want to save tax dollars in the justice system -- but we should place prosecution and sentencing as being more important to “ensure real justice for society and victims”!

In the case of the perpetrators responsible for the arson attempts on the VPD cruisers and the smashing of retail windows and looting products from The Bay and London Drugs - the evidence was caught on many I Phones, cell phones and Digicams and uploaded to the internet.  Is that not incontrovertible proof?

Surely that is a 100% chance of conviction, and it should have been dealt with “quickly with effective sentencing” in short order (not later than 2 weeks after the event, not 6 months later and in the next year).  This is totally unacceptable and major judicial disrepute!

These two offenses carry stiff legal penalties (ie 14 year plus in prison) so they should have priority in court, and the public be assured, that on conviction, they will be sentenced to a term fitting to the crime, and fitting to past brushes and encounters with the law these individuals have experienced.  This was an extremely violent incident … and those most responsible should be receiving stiff jail sentences … and there should not be any sentences of simple house arrest or community service!   

Why bother even having a costly trial if that is going to be the result of a costly trial? 

Why even bother with criminal courts if society, and the victims, don’t get any real justice?

We will not have any justice unless there is a wholesale review and overhaul of the legal system in British Columbia and Canada.

Since when has Freedom of Expression (section 2 of the charter) become a criminal offense, and part of the Canadian Criminal Code?

If it is not, then why are human rights tribunals being allowed to levy severe fines and extremely tough restraints on “victims”, and not fully compensating those wrongfully convicted; as they do in regular courts when found to be innocent of the crime(s)?

Why do provincial or crown courts “rubber stamp” the verdicts and sentencing of these tribunals when the evidence is circumspect, and very doubtful, when compared to rules of evidence in Federal or Provincial Supreme Courts (where evidence has to be extremely accurate to ensure a conviction).

We have Tort Law, and that should be more than sufficient to deal with legal issues dealing with perceived wrongs needing evidence that requires proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”; and that the defendant has legal equality when it comes to court and legal costs incurred.

British Columbians need to insist government right a terrible wrong and recognize that Human Rights Tribunals, and hearings, violate the very concept of justice … and that they violate respect for the charter.  This so-called Human Rights legislation needs to be completely abolished – it is so bad that none of it should be saved, or transferred, to other legal situations.

Only by scrapping the whole unjust Human Rights process, and legislation, can we be assured that there is no chance of blatant injustice being allowed to creep into Canadian law again, and thereby violating the very concept of democracy.

There is no need for blatant vindictiveness or “political agendas” of special interest groups or individuals --- and we must not allow for organizations, or individuals, to pervert Canadian justice through Human Rights tribunals.  These tribunals violate the very constitutional rights of individuals.

It is my opinion that most Canadians would rather use the true democratic legal system to deal with issues, and trust that the courts will determine those issues to everyone’s benefit!

And there was one final comment from Bob:
We must find a way of dealing with those who have multiple convictions, that our courts seem totally incapable of dealing with!  For example, we have a scumbag with no less than 78 convictions (many for preying on and stealing from seniors) who will now likely have another 2-3 more court appearances due to very recent arrests over the last 3 weeks!

Tracy Lloyd Caza

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130):
A notorious criminal who preys on the elderly is in trouble once again. Tracy Lloyd Caza was arrested on New Year's Eve.

He has been charged with sexual assault, assault and uttering threats after a woman claimed he attacked and threatened her December 31.

He was released in early December after serving two years in jail for robbery and Vancouver Police warned he was very likely to re-offend.

Caza has racked up 78 convictions including crimes against seniors. Three years ago, he stole the rings off a woman in the hospital who had just had her leg amputated.

He was released from custody on condition that he will appear in court on Friday.

Why does the justice system not deliver people, who have ended up with dozens and dozens of convictions, with consecutive prison terms?  In this case, and others like it, life-long criminals should be receiving consecutive jail terms, rather than concurrent.  This is what I believe the public is looking for in our ‘justice’ system … and if a process is not already in place for this to happen, then we need to look at passing new legislation so that our provincial courts are able to do so. 

Those again are the thoughts today of our guest writer, Bob Tarplett – so ... what do you think??

I'm Alan Forseth in Kamloops, with conservative thoughts.