Will Basi-Virk trial happen soon or not at all - defence drops applications to throw out case

REVISED STORY 2 p.m.

The Special Prosecutor in the Basi-Virk/BC Rail case this morning told two court hearing that he expects the defence to drop all their applications to stay corruption charges against three former BC government aides - will the trial proceed quickly as a result - or not at all?

After a very short hearing with BC Supreme Court Justice Anne MacKenzie - which was scheduled to hear the defence's Charter of Rights application on unreasonable delay for the trial - Special Prosecutor Bill Berardino said outside court that the defence moves will allow a trial date to be set soon.

But defence lawyer Michael Bolton, acting for David Basi, would say little when asked what was going on and if his client and co-accused Bob Virk and Aneal Basi would in fact face trial shortly as a result.

"There's really nothing we can comment on now. Discussions are occurring that will streamline the trial," Bolton said. Bolton refused to comment on speculation of a plea bargain by the accused.

When I attempted to ask Bolton about reports I heard in December that the defence would drop its Charter of Rights and abuse of process applications - which Bolton then called "pure rumour" - defence lawyer Kevin McCullough, representing Virk, quickly interrupted me to pull Bolton away.

"No comment," Bolton replied to me as he exited. McCullough later apologized to me for the intervention, without explanation.

Before that and right after the short BC Rail session Berardino and Bolton went next door for a separate hearing in front of BC Supreme Court Justice Lance Bernard on additional breach of trust charges against David Basi which allege he illegally influenced a decision to remove farmland from the Agricultural Land Reserve for a Saanich development in for a payment of $50,000.

Basi and developers Jim Duncan and Tony Young all face charges in the matter.

Berardino told Bernard that: "There are certain developments in the BC Rail case and as a result we appear to be in a position to fix a trial date on February 1 or within a few days of that."

Bernard agreed to postpone the hearing until February 8th at 9:30 a.m. so that all involved would then know the date of the BC Rail trial and the ALR trial would follow that one.

David Basi participated in the brief hearing by phone, with his lawyer Bolton explaining that Basi was home very ill with the flu. Basi said almost nothing except to tell Bernard he understood what was proposed.

Basi has still not retained Bolton as his counsel in the case, the court heard, but Bolton appeared for him with associate Claire Hatcher nonetheless. Bolton said a proposal to cover his legal costs has been made.

The BC Rail case will resume with a disclosure hearing January 19, an update on the case January 25 and then a date to set the trial will likely take place February 1.

NDP MLA Leonard Krog says that he believes a trial will soon take place after today's developments.

"I think this is good news for British Columbians and bad news for the Gordon Campbell government," Krog said in a telephone interview.

"The accused deserve a trial and the people deserve to hear what happened," he said.

Krog was concerned when asked about the possibility of no trial.

"My reaction would be to demand there be a public inquiry forthwith," he said, adding the end of the case would remove any impediments to an inquiry.

Krog has repeatedly called for a public inquiry if the trial does not proceed and posed 70 separate questions in the BC Legislature for the Attorney General to answer back in 2007.

"This is the major corruption scandal in BC history," Krog said today.

I was late arriving at BC Supreme Court for the BC Rail hearing but my colleague Neal Hall of the Vancouver Sun reports that Berardino told MacKenzie he expected the defence would not proceed with its applications.
MacKenzie replied that it would save the court a lot of time, prompting McCullough to say "four to six months".

Is the defence is merely reading the writing on the wall, as I have argued here in earlier postings, realizing that there is little likelihood the Charter application on "unreasonable delay" of the trial could succeed due to a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision that ruled a complex case requiring over 56 months to complete was not unreasonable.

Dropping a losing pair of applications that would like fail could be simply a reasonable decision to get the trial on and finally end the difficult situation the accused have faced for six long years.

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