The Crown in the BC Legislature Raid case today announced it will disclose to the defence documents which the provincial government has long claimed solicitor-client privilege over.
It was a very short pre-trial hearing session today - so short I missed it due to my weekly appearance on CKNW's The Bill Good Show.
But outside BC Supreme Court Michael Bolton, lawyer for David Basi, said in an interview that the decision announced by Special Prosecutor Bill Berardino will speed up the pre-trial process.
"We're pleased to be receiving the solicitor-client documents we've been requesting for over two years," Bolton said. "Between two and four weeks of court time has been saved as a result."
"The Special Prosecutor advised the court the defence will receive the documents by next Wednesday," Bolton said.
Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi - all former BC Liberal government aides - face a variety of corruption related charges stemming from the December 28, 2003 police raid of the BC Legislature.
New Democratic Party MLA Leonard Krog said outside the court that releasing the material is long overdue.
"The good news is that the Crown is disclosing the documents, as they should. The bad news is they should have done so ages ago," Krog said.
Bolton said the next court appearance will be an update Monday October 20 at 9:15 a.m.
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10 comments:
Moving right along, slowly but moving
Bill, when is the secret witness appeal going to happen?
Some people are suggesting that Berardino is hoping that the Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada not be hearc until the Summer of 2009!
In answer to the Supreme Court of Canada question, here's what Michael Bolton, David Basi's lawyer, said at the time:
"The Supreme Court of Canada will take until October at the earliest to decide on leave to appeal," Bolton said. "It could be up to several months for a Supreme Court of Canada case to be heard."
"The inevitable result will be some delay but the extent we don't know," he said. "We can do parts of the vetting but it's highly unlikely we can complete it without a ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada."
The full posting is at:
http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/2008/07/basi-virk-no-trial-likely-for-up-to.html
At this moment President Richard Milhouse Campbell needs to find a suitable Robert Bork clone in Stone Wally's office to go and fire everyone involved in the Basigate case.
Obviously . . . Stone Walley is as useless as dried goat dung in a hurricane, so our beloved President Campbell has got to find someone with the gonads to rip the guts out of these socialist dogs.
A Loyal BC Liberal
I'm lying,
The GREAT SATAN
Bill,
Is it not illegal for the crown to with hold evidence? I mean with forfitting the case, to keep the 'secret witness' consealed? (If there is a secert witness)... Still this would harm the judgement of the wrong doers, and what about the VICTIMS!?!Can't some savy lawyer do something here?
It takes over two years of defence requests to get these documents and now the SP provides them?
He fights tooth and nail every inch regarding basic disclosure and Berardino all of a sudden has a change of heart?
What gives? This absolutely makes no sense. What strategy is afoot here??
The Special Prosecutor's behaviour continues to raise questions.
Anon 10:34 a.m. you raise a number of good questions.
To understand what is happening you have to realize that this Special Prosecutor (SP) is not acting independently from the Premier. As such, the Premier’s “cover up” strategy as enacted through the SP is three pronged.
1. As opposed to the SP’s stated intention to release the government documents including “innocence at stake because the fix was in” document to the defense, the Premier’s real intention is to have them never see “the light of day”. Accordingly, the SP will attach conditions on the release of the documents that the defense can’t agree to. It will then be up to the courts to decide as the SP will then take this fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
2. However, before it gets that far the “secret witness” appeal will have been rejected by the Supreme Court so as to give the SP the excuse he will use to drop the case. Here it is important to remember that there is no secret witness and that the real reason this appeal is going forward is that the Premier through the SP does not want to release the RCMP “tailored and targeted to protect the Premier smoking gun” documents to the defense – to ensure that these documents also never see “the light of day”.
3. Finally, the “Government” will then offer the accused an extremely large monetary settlement to avoid civil litigation and as such, a new fight by the plaintiffs to see the government “innocence at stake because the fix was in” and the RCMP “tailored and targeted to protect the Premier smoking gun” documents. However, there will be conditions on the money including that the plaintiffs accept a “gag” order so as to ensure that it “all goes quietly away”.
Deep Throat,
Interesting ... the way you've started calling the Accused persons the "plaintiffs". In a "new fight", they would be, wouldn't they. And the defendants would be ... ?
Plus:
I'm pretty sure that perjury is still an indictable offence. So has anybody on the Defence team (Case #23299) actually put the question to Berardino: IS THERE A SECRET WITNESS? And if perjury were the result, would you care to speculate on the defendants if that case goes to trial?
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BC Mary:
You ask a very interesting question.
Albeit, the question you ask is a very rhetorical question.
Let us just say that I think this will be (when it finally comes to this) the largest civil lawsuit payout in Canadian history and, of course, it will be paid for by the taxpayers of British Columbia!
Interesting points DT - especially the concept of conditions being placed on the .....
I was also wondering if we have any evidence that all of the SCP doc will be 'released' (ie. are there some that will still be protected and/or currently being shielded behind the 'protocol')?
_____
Just thought of something....Given that some of the SCP stuff reportedly came from banks, is it possible that some of them are no longer in existence?
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