"Another Day,
Another Delay!"
-Mike Farnsworth

Well I thought I was going to have to sue Mr. Farnsworth, NDP public safety critic and today's designated Oppo CourtRoom 54 Monitor, for plagiarism, but then I checked and found that my July 17 headline read "Another Day, & More Delay." Well how many ways can anyone say "more of the same, namely nothing," anyway?

In spite of Justice Bennett's threat a week or two ago that they would stay in session starting today until resolving the ongoing disclosure problems, they adjourned again until tomorrow, at least. According to Neal Hall in the Stunned Vancouver Paper of Record:

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett had a hint of weariness in her voice today after learning the B.C. government has found more than 100 e-mails that were seized during a raid on the legislature more than four years ago

The documents have never been reviewed by the judge to decide whether the e-mails are relevant to a pending trial, slated to begin March 17.

The judge adjourned the matter over to 10 a.m. Tuesday to allow government lawyer George Copley to retrieve about 140 e-mails from Victoria and provide a written summary of each one.

Apparently these emails were "were seized in 2003 from the computers of Dave Basi and Bob Virk" during the original Raid on the Ledge in December of 2003. I guess it would be wildly optimistic and overly demanding to expect them to have been turned over to the defense ALREADY!

I think I'm just going start writing these things the night before. It isn't like there is any reason to expect anything to really, you know.......happen! Then again, I guess I should wait, I may not be able to guess the next EXCUSE!

In Other Legal Matters:
Also according to the Sun:

A six-year battle between the B.C. government and health care workers has ended in a deal that will protect current workers and compensate the thousands thrown out of work by the province, Hospital Employees' Union secretary-business manager Judy Darcy said today. ..../snip

The province was ordered to offer the unions compensation after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the government had no legal right to rip up a contract and overrule the collective bargaining process.

The bolded sections are highlighted by me as the the Sun doesn't seem to emphasize a couple of points that I consider relevant.

1. How arrogant the Campbell Govermment was in the first place to assume that signed contracts weren't binding on them.

2. The fact that this decision by the Supreme Court of Canada was handed down almost one year ago, if I remember correctly.

3. This whole thing has taken SIX years to get to this state of resolution, so maybe Basi, Virk and Basi v. the Queen isn't going so slow after all. It isn't as if we are dealing with people with any RESPECT for the RULE of LAW.

I'm still somewhat surprised that they haven't just gone and changed whatever laws were necessary to invalidate the Supreme Court's decision. I guess it must have been Charter issues and they didn't want to waste a "WithStanding" claim on a special interest group like hospital workers.