Ian Mulgrew: B.C. civil disobedience trumps law enforcement at Fairy Creek
Opinion: Injunctions have long and often turned the court into a tool for Big Business and Bad Government. This time it didn’t work.

Mohandas Gandhi would be proud — civil disobedience won another round in B.C. Supreme Court and the rule of law was defined as much more than simply law enforcement.

Justice Douglas Thompson’s refusal to extend a one-year injunction restricting protests against logging in the Fairy Creek watershed emphasized the impartial status of courts and civil rights are equally important societal values.

A top lawyer involved in the case, Steven Kelliher said the injunction raised serious concerns and should never have been issued:

“The courts get drawn into an enforcement role, stepping aside from their adjudicative role that we expect them to have, and they run the risk that they are going to be tainted both by the politics of the day — which is significant when there is large public disagreement and civil disobedience — and they are also going to be tainted by the manner in which the injunction was enforced.”

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Ian Mulgrew: Dirty money, legal deadlines tough on police
Prosecutors “spend a good deal of time answering basic questions from law enforcement about commercial crime, how to prepare reports to Crown counsel, and questions on the fundamentals of commercial investigations.”

The inquiry into money laundering must wrestle with the nettlesome issue of the inability or failure of police to provide admissible evidence to support more than a handful of dirty-money prosecutions.

Many witnesses addressed the thorny problem during the commission’s hearings, and proposed solutions included creating an expensive new agency to tackle economic crime or beefing up the current response — aggressive use of the self-financing civil forfeiture office.

Senior Crown counsel — who approve charges and shepherd money-laundering and proceeds-of-crime cases through trial — were surveyed by the commission in November and February and their responses are contained in an overview report that has been filed as an exhibit.

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Ian Mulgrew: Controversial RCMP ‘choke-hold’ incidents questioned in B.C.
Analysis: Concerns about more than 100 incidents involving the problematic Vascular Neck Restraint have been raised

B.C.’s Ministry of Public Safety has found provincial Mounties have been using a controversial sleeper-hold and, in scores of cases, the incident reports did not appear to justify the knock-out technique.

Postmedia has learned that while reviewing RCMP reports from 2019, the ministry’s Policing and Security Branch initially raised concerns about more than 100 incidents involving the problematic Vascular Neck Restraint.

The branch flagged 79 incidents in particular from 2012 to 2018 and notified RCMP E Division (which covers the province) of the apparent discrepancy between the policy on using the technique and what officers were actually doing.

“I’m not surprised at how widespread the use is, and I am also not surprised at the lack of accurate reporting of the use of force by officers,” said Carly Teillet, a community lawyer with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

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Ian Mulgrew: Dysfunctional policing a real issue for Cullen
The commission has confronted a regulatory thicket involving police, the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, the B.C. Lottery Corp., and other agencies.
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Ian Mulgrew: Secret Kash Heed recordings need vetting
“I wanted to secure and preserve any evidence relating to these matters given the fact that memories fade, people die, brain injuries occur.”
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