203. Legal Versus Justice

VIEWS@13653

Chris Budgell emailed me below, and allows me to post it here.

"Jan,

I long ago understood from my reading that a legal system is not necessarily a justice system.  This observation has been made countless times by members of the profession, but the average citizen doesn't really understand what that means.  There is now a great deal of rhetoric extant about "the rule of law".  This includes that there is a "thin" version and a "thick" version.  One can easily argue that we are the beneficiaries of the (or a) thin version, which starts with a principle that all laws must be knowable to everyone they effect.  Nominally we have a structure in Canada that makes all our laws "knowable" (though I would say in practice that's not even close to being true).

A dictator (name your favorite) can then easily claim to be in compliance with this thin rule of law.  What we have is a very complex tyranny, but it is a tyranny nonetheless.  It is much harder to discern such a complex system as a tyranny.  It is easy for those who collectively wield the power to confuse the public with rhetoric.  They are assisted by a compliant press.

I don't think that leaves us with only the options of acquiescence or revolution.  It's still early days for the Internet, that no one, crucially those who wield the power, saw coming.  You now have the means to access the vast body of laws and the record of jurisprudence.  That has allowed me, an unschooled amateur, to find the evidence I think conclusively proves certain people have lied.  They lied, and are continuing to lie, at the Labour Board about the legislation (Labour Code section 13) that they claim enables them to summarily dismiss duty of fair representation complaints.  That evidence includes a document signed in 1998 by four people, one of whom is now a sitting judge.  I've named her in three complaints filed with the Canadian Judicial Council.  In responding to me they alerted me to the fact that they illegally altered their bylaws, by creating section 2.2 of what they now call their Complaints Procedures.

These two examples of lawlessness (and recklessness) suggest that the record contains a great many others that no one has gone looking for.  Sooner or later someone is going to find a way to put something of this sort to a jury.  Or a member of the press corp will find the courage to present it to the court of public opinion, a court that has recently been demonstrating that it can try and convict people.  There are signs that is starting to worry the authorities.  And that would be because they know their system has no real legitimacy.

... cb "